


First Watch of the Night

by GuileandGall



Series: Guardians in the Darkness [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Action, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, General, Headcanon, POV Multiple, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 14:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 180,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lieutenant Commander Nyx Shepard was raised in the Alliance. From the age of five she lived like a soldier, moving to from ship to station and back again with her father Taranis, who traded his role as a combat medic to give her some semblance of stability. With a childhood like hers, few are surprised she joined the service, though many are surprised by the magnitude of her successes. But her career stability is challenged when she gets a new assignment with an old friend that turns out to be more than what it seems. Her installment on the SSV Normandy will prove to be the ultimate test of her ability improvise, adapt, and overcome the obstacles--personal, professional, and operational--that come her way when the Galactic Council sees fit to make her the first human Spectre.</p><p>Chapter 1 Summary: Shepard's life changes dramatically, and suddenly the things she used to define herself and her place in the universe are stripped from her. Despite the best efforts of good rum, she toward a new path through the black sea between the stars listing hard to port.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The first installment of a Mass Effect epic intent on exploring the voices and lives of Commander Shepard and her crew as they battle through personal demons, overcome powerful enemies, and seek something more than they ever thought they could have in the black sea between the stars. First Watch of the Night spans the time frame of Mass Effect 1 and spans some of the time between it and Mass Effect 2. You will see friendships form and develop, and look at the events of the game and their effects on the characters through multiple perspectives. 
> 
> I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers--xforeverquotex, my paramour, and brownc0at. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece. I would also like to thank some readers who assisted me in bringing this first chapter to fruition: Izanagi, Stealer-L1F3, drkhvn, and DarthSquirt.
> 
> Disclaimer: Mass Effect belongs to Bioware, I'm only playing with their universe. I do not own the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. I do it for the love of the game, the world, and the characters; and because they stuck with me long after I turned the game off (and back on, and off, ad infinitum).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1 Summary: Shepard's life changes dramatically, and suddenly the things she used to define herself and her place in the universe are stripped from her. Despite the best efforts of good rum, she sets off toward a new path through the black sea between the stars listing hard to port.

 

**First Watch of the Night**

**01 First Impressions**

**i.**

* * *

 

Ensign Michaela Scarlatti, woefully out of her depth, pressed her hand on her knee to calm the erratic bouncing. It got mutinous every time her nerves got the better of her, and this trip was the closest to the field she'd ever been. She was not even sure why she had been tasked with this job, except that she happened to have a desk right outside the conference room. And when an admiral like Steven Hackett points at you and says jump, that's precisely what you do.

"Damn nerves," she whispered to herself as her hands brushed over her pant leg trying to dust away her anxiety, because there wasn't a speck of anything on her uniform. A part of her hoped the knee wouldn't start bouncing involuntarily again on the return trip to Arcturus Station. She glanced at her data cuff; the shuttle should be arriving at the dreadnought soon. Scarlatti just hoped they would arrive before Shepard.

Somewhere up the chain of command, someone had decided to pull Lieutenant Commander Nyx Shepard and her team off a mission when an undisclosed task flashed across the channels. To prompt Alliance Command to pull any team, especially Shepard's team, out of a mission in progress it had to be something big. Scarlatti had no idea what, though, but that was her lot. Intelligence was not the glamorous job that the vids made it out to be. Most of the time she didn't know anything that was going on. She knew she was only even on that shuttle because she was just an analyst with poor taste in workstations. She compiled data and reports, but her clearance was way below whatever had set Hackett and her superiors to recall Shepard's squad.

The sound of the engines changed and then the shuttle seemed to hover, minutely shaking beneath her feet as the engines shifted the direction of thrust to land the vessel in the cargo bay of the dreadnought. The young officer stood as the shuttle's engines powered off. A _t least standing your knee want give you away_ , she thought, glad that at least that telltale sign of her anxiety would be less visible with a mere change of position.

A low buzz emitted from the comm before a voice made its way through the system. "This is Everest Control to Arcturus Shuttle 0472."

The pilot keyed the communications and said, "Go ahead Everest."

"A-Seven's shuttle is inbound. ETA 2 minutes in Bay 2-E. I repeat. Two-Echo. Five bays aft of you Arcturus 0472."

"Thank you," she said loudly over the pilot's shoulder as he keyed to respond. She was rather hoping to make this introduction to Shepard without looking like a disheveled mess.  "Damn," she muttered to herself. _The shuttles just had to arrive on top of one another_. She popped the hatch and sprinted out of the shuttle she'd boarded on Arcturus Station, reaching Bay 2-E in time to see a nearly identical Alliance shuttle touch down. Stopping near the nose, she took several calming breaths, though she knew they would do little to erase the traces of her exertion.

The door was opening when she reached it, and raucous laughter tumbled out onto the deck, causing the ensign to smile. At least until several pairs of sharp eyes focused on her, studying her, and then moving on. She'd never been looked at like that before, and it was a little disconcerting. "Hey, S-L. I think she's for you," a wiry man clad in nondescript, unmarked black armor called over her shoulder as he passed her.

"Stop scaring the natives, Sergeant," a gruff but distinctly male voice called.

"She's not a native," another man offered. His eyes moved over the ensign again in a way that made her feel incredibly vulnerable, not because he would hurt her, but because she knew that if anyone on that shuttle wished it, they could easily reduce her to a quivering pile of goo. Scarlatti had compiled intelligence for this crew, and read their after action reports; she was more than aware that every person on that shuttle was a capable and carefully honed warrior, the squad leader most of all.

"I'm looking for Commander Shepard," the ensign squeaked. She felt the blush warm her face as her nerves got the better of her.

"Leave the intel officer be," the strange but familiar voice called from the back of the shuttle. Some of the men were moving past the ensign, while others were leaning out of the way to allow Shepard to pass. "I take it you're the one they broke radio silence about and scrubbed my mission for." The commander sounded annoyed, but the ensign could not do anything but stare, as the woman slipped out from between two intimidating-looking men and hopped out of the shuttle.

Despite all the exhaustive effort she'd spent in learning about this crew, Scarlatti had not seen any images of the commander more recent than the ones from the Skyllian Blitz. She expected Shepard to be … _bigger_. But the officer looking up at her with a mix of expectation and stoicism was physically dwarfed by the men she worked with. _She can't be more than five-three_ , the ensign thought as her eyes raked over the petite woman. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."

"Damn, Shepard, you're getting better at that. Two sentences and she's already sounding off like you trained her," another imposing looking man offered as he slipped past his senior officer.

"Ignore Chief Jensen. So, tell me Ensign, what is so important that Command broke a mission protocol they demanded?" Shepard was referring to the stipulation for radio silence while the team was scouting the moon suspected to be a waypoint for a pirate smuggling ring. The commander guided the younger officer backward and away from the door of the shuttle with a careful combination of slow steps and a stern gaze. Five steps later, Scarlatti realized the two of them had been a bit of an obstacle.

Scarlatti shook her head clear, though she still freely stared at the other officer. _She has a nice shape to her; wonder if it's the physical conditioning._ The ensign was shocked at how surprisingly feminine she looked even in armor and covered in … _is that blood?_ "Umm. Yes, Alliance Command has tasked me with escorting you back to Arcturus Station."

Shepard crossed her arms over her chest loosely and leaned back, eying the other woman appraisingly. "Really? They sent an Intel officer to _escort_ me?"

"Yes, ma'am." The ensign nodded somewhat sheepishly. Although the commander's squad had given the pair a wide berth, they were all still milling around the cargo deck and observing the exchange, albeit as covertly as possible in some cases, though there were blatant exceptions who did not even attempt to disguise their scrutiny or attention.

"What's this about?" Shepard pulled off one of her gloves and dropped it in her upturned helmet, which she cradled under one arm.

Scarlatti swallowed hard. "I don't know."

The commander raised an eyebrow at her. Scarlatti was familiar enough with Shepard's reports to know the officer's opinion of that particular phrase, especially from intelligence officers. "You don't know, huh?" The ensign offered another nod. Shepard pulled off her other glove dropping her gaze to her hands and offering the ensign a reprieve from the commander's scrutinizing gaze.

"Is there some kind of communiqué?"

Scarlatti offered another shake of her head, her shoulders shrinking a bit wishing she were anywhere but right there in that moment, knowing less than nothing about the situation.

Shepard bit her bottom lip. "Perhaps a self-destructing vid? Data pad with a decoder ring?"

A few chuckles rumbled around them.

 _Maybe you can still redeem yourself_. She straightened a little and said, "No, ma'am. I was tasked with this on the fly. Happened to be in--"

"The wrong spot at the wrong time," Shepard interrupted, dropping the other glove in her helmet and eying the junior officer impatiently.

"Kind of, ma'am _." It certainly feels that way now_. Scarlatti grasped at the gold piping on the seam of her slacks tightly then realized the fidgeting had started again. Knowing she could only combat it one way, the Ensign clasped her hands tightly behind her back and tensed all the muscles she could to try and not let her nervousness show.

"All right," she conceded finally. "Can I shower first? Or are we slated for immediate departure?"

The hesitant look Scarlatti offered the other officer made Shepard sigh with clear irritation.

"Chief Jensen," the commander called with a wave. Scarlatti knew him by name only; he was also an N7 and had worked with Shepard for years. "No down time, children. Where's the shuttle?"

"Umm. Commander. Just you. Your team is being temporarily reassigned to Commander Lassiter."

The ensign jumped back when the chief tensed up. Shepard patted him on the shoulder.

"Down boy," she offered with a light chuckle. Then the two operators shared an intense look before she glanced around the bay at the rest of her teammates. "Don't give Lassiter too much hell fellas, and don't get me banned from this vessel while he's in transit," she ordered with a lightness to her tone that was in stark contrast to the tension in her brow. "Where's our ride?" Shepard asked when her gaze landed squarely on the nervous ensign.

The two women strolled across the deck toward the bay that held the transport shuttle bearing the designation Arcturus 0472. The ensign dropped glances behind her noticing that the men from the commander's crew were following them. Shepard tapped on the side of the shuttle to announce her intention to board and the doors started to open.

The display was striking. "Attention on deck!" Chief Jensen's gravelly voice boomed. Even people who were not clad in black armor snapped to, as did the ensign, out of sheer instinct. Shepard returned the salute and made a motion for the junior officer to enter the vessel first. "Good hunting, Commander."

"Give 'em hell, Seven," Shepard replied with a wink. Her men barked a bold reply which made Shepard smirk proudly.

The ensign keyed the panel to close the door then watched Shepard take a seat in the corner and lean back against the bulkhead. She stretched her legs out on the bench and tilted her head against one of the padded headrests while she held her helmet in her lap. Scarlatti was amazed. In so many ways Commander Shepard was larger than life, but she was short, petite, and not at all as butch as the ensign had been expecting. She took her own seat as the engines fired to life, her eyes studying the other officer.

"Please stop staring at me, Ensign," Shepard said quietly with her eyes still closed.

That was another thing that surprised Scarlatti--Shepard's voice. It was deep, but not masculine. It held authority in a non-traditional way. When the commander spoke, you merely felt compelled to listen; you wanted to know what she had to say.

The superior officer opened one eye and looked at her, Scarlatti felt a little ashamed that she was so awestruck.

"I'm sorry, Commander." She wrung her hands, as she leaned back and tried to redirect her gaze to anywhere but the N7 officer opposite her. "I… just… You're not quite how I pictured you."

The blonde laughed lightly and glanced over at the other passenger. "Yeah. I've heard that once or twice."

"Sorry," the ensign replied, still trying to look away from the commander.

"It's fine, Ensign." Shepard did not look quite as severe as she had on the deck, or so Scarlatti thought. "You know, some would say it's an advantage to be underestimated at first glance."

"Or a double-edged sword."

"Very true," Shepard agreed, leaning her head back again. "But I've figured out how to combat it when I need to." She shifted her shoulders slightly like she was trying to find a more comfortable position.  "I'm going to try to catch a little combat nap, if you don't mind. If I'm not up, kick my chair when we're twenty minutes out, please."

"Yes, ma'am," Scarlatti agreed, though she knew it would be more likely that she would not be quite so rude about waking the other officer.

 

 

**ii.**

* * *

 

Lieutenant Commander Nyx Shepard's arrival on Arcturus Station went relatively unnoticed. The only people that were aware she was there initially were the Intelligence officer escorting her and the two men she'd been pulled off a mission to meet with--Commander James Lassiter of Special Operations Command and Admiral Steven Hackett, Commander of Fifth Fleet. Normally Shepard had the time, and the adherence to protocol, to at least hose the pirate blood off her gear before meeting with the brass, but this was their timeline so she had no qualms about the current state of her armor.

The meeting had been short, sweet and to the point, but it had left Shepard reeling and with a lot of unanswered questions, which she wouldn't even be able to ask for another twelve or so hours. Her career had just taken an unplanned deviation from the course it had been set on for more than six years. The only advantage she could find was that at least it happened on Arcturus Station.

Most of her possessions were kept safe in a locker not too far from the Fleet offices. She spent so little time there that she'd given up the apartment she tried to keep early on in her career, but between her training and operational schedules her visits to the station were little more than stopovers lasting a day or two at a time, making it seem like a waste of perfectly usable space. She'd given up the spacious loft, realizing someone could put it to better use than she had. Having grown up on ships and stations, she knew the value of personal space and knew what having one's own space to roam could mean to someone. To someone else the lovely loft on Lima Deck, with the window over the bed that looked out on the stars, could be a respite from the grind of life.

She spent an hour standing in the storage locker, packing a spare duffel bag with the blue fleet uniform of the day, her N7 black BDUs, and two of her dress uniforms. The other bare necessities joined a few sentimental items that she decided to take with her--photos, mementos, and a few things that reminded her why she joined the Alliance. All told it was barely more than two-thirds of the bag. She toyed with the idea of throwing some random items in there, but knew it wouldn't matter when it came down to it. She was headed to her team's load out room next, and after clearing her locker and grabbing a few more things there, it would be a little fuller.

When she first entered the space designated for Arcturus Seven, it was almost too much for her. Memories flooded back mixed with a healthy dose of good old fashioned rage, and she dropped the duffel bag and the case with her armor near the door and immediately left. Shepard always thought she was good with change. It had always been stability that made her uncomfortable. It was one of the reasons why she was so good at her job, the ability to adapt quickly. Some people didn't take to the lifestyle she led, which was why her team didn't have a lot of turnover. Too many people came to A7 with high hopes only to find the pace and the constant motion of the team to be more than they could handle. But in all that flux, it seemed, Shepard had carved out a little niche all her own. For five years she'd called that room home, those men family, and her job her life. And in a matter of minutes it was all gone.

 _I just need a little more time to adjust, that's all_ , she thought, not sure she really believed it. Outside the docks, she looked around and thought for a moment. A few decks away there was a special forces haunt that she knew stocked her brand of rum. But Nyx wasn't sure she wanted to be where someone might recognize her at that moment. Considering her options, she remembered the last time she was on Arcturus Station there had been a few other bars that had her drink of choice on hand, so she pulled up her omnitool and did a quick check. _One other: the Corona Club_ _it is_ , she thought and crossed the station with purpose as her ire cooled with distance.

The deep bass pulsed with the black lights while the electronic melody was mirrored by the swirling movements of small multi-colored spotlights that washed people and objects in muted shades, which were bright enough to see by but not so bright as to actually illuminate. The Corona Club was designed to mimic the asari bars common to more xeno-eclectic places like the Citadel; it was not a place you expected to find on a human station. Nor was it Nyx's type of scene by any stretch of the imagination, but it had been the only other location stocking English Harbor at the bar. And after the shock she'd just gotten, good rum was all Lieutenant Commander Shepard was in the mood for.

Her eyes scanned the scene--too many twenty-somethings gyrating in designer Asari fashions, a few military personnel who looked more than a bit out of place, and then there were the self-important patrons dancing on risers and talking too loudly about nothing of consequence.

But at that moment, she just needed a drink and a place she was sure no one would pick her out of the crowd. Though the latter did not happen often, it was more likely in the places she preferred to frequent, which catered to specific military populations. She rubbed her palms on the tops of her thighs and continued her sweep, trying to find a place she could disappear, though in this crowd it would likely be pretty easy to go unnoticed, especially dressed as she was. The relative anonymity offered by a pair of well-worn jeans and a white cap-sleeved t-shirt added to her confidence that she'd be able to go relatively unnoticed and unaccosted in this place. 

Her lips curved into the barest hint of a smile when she noticed the corner, dark and far away from any lights or speakers. It was perfect. It was precisely what she needed in that moment. She walked purposefully toward her destination, but stopped cold when she turned to round the large structural beam at the corner of the bar and caught sight of the shoulder of another clever patron, which suggested she was not the first to discover the redeeming qualities of the tucked away location. For a moment she reconsidered her plan, quickly deciding it didn't matter. Being out of sight and out of mind in a place like this was worth putting up with the presence of another human being.

Shepard felt better about it when she noticed that the other occupant looked as out of place as she felt. "May I?" she asked as she reached the bar.

"Sure," he replied without even a glance in her direction, which Nyx didn't mind at all. He seemed to be more interested in observing everything else.

When the bartender appeared she placed her order. "English Harbor, neat." The tall thin man in black nodded approvingly and walked back down the bar to find the requested bottle.

"English Harbor, huh?"

"Yeah, my grandfather's shame." She laughed. "Irishman with a granddaughter who has a penchant for rum." _Shut up, Nyx_ , she told herself with a shake of her head. She'd always had a tendency to ramble when she was nervous or upset.

The man to her left shrugged. "I've heard it's worth it."

"Indeed, it is." The bartender returned and traded the glass for her chit. She gestured toward the man on her left with her chin. "What are you drinking?"

"Canadian whiskey."

"Uisce beatha." He looked over at her, his brow knitted with confusion. "Water of life," Nyx clarified with an embarrassed shrug before raising her glass. He raised his as well, with a tip of his head, then both returned their attention to their spirits.

Shepard was aware that he was watching her now. "If you don't mind me asking," he began, "what are you doing here?" She looked at him curiously and he sheepishly explained, "You don't strike me as the type to frequent a place like this."

She laughed as she looked down into her glass and opted to deflect the question. She did not like talking about herself, at all really. "I could ask the same about you," she replied with a quick glance.

"Yes. I guess you do have me there. See, my _ex_ -friends," he said playfully as he looked and gestured toward a small group of people just down the bar, "thought this would be a great place to--" He stopped cold when he realized she was actually listening.

"To what?" she asked, though she was pretty sure she could guess the answer. The three men in the little group, Shepard had pegged when she walked in. She was fairly certain they, and her new drinking buddy, were military. The young women fawning over his _ex-friends_ suggested the reason they had chosen this spot.

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. The music's horrible and the lights could give a person a seizure. Only saving grace is the extensive bar."

Nyx laughed loudly in agreement. "It's one of two places on this god-forsaken station where I can find this rum."

She neglected to mention the fact that the other location was a more familiar and comfortable location which she had specifically avoided because she was craving anonymity along with said rum. He smiled at her and Shepard knew she was in trouble. At that moment she made a mental decision to stop at one drink. His eyes were warm and inviting and there was something about him that drew her interest. It was precisely the type of entanglement she tried to avoid when things in her life were steady. At that moment, it was in more than enough upheaval, she thought, and she certainly did not need anything else to complicate it with--especially a dark-haired, amber-eyed, well-built something. She shook her head to try to combat the rogue thoughts, but it was like the old adage goes: the plans of mice and men.

When he finished his drink, he offered to buy her a round. Also opting to try her drink of choice--praising it rather highly, or so she thought considering he was a whiskey drinker. They talked about nothing, the station, the club, the music; neither wanted to reveal more about themselves than was already patently obvious to the other person.

Nyx was pretty sure he was in the service, likely a marine: the tight t-shirt and the way he scanned the room suggested he'd at least seen a little combat action. She knew she had the same habit--checking a room for threats and exits, improvised weapons, and anything seemingly out of place was old hat for her. It was one of those ways that people like them could pick one another out of the crowd. She was certain she was obvious, even though she'd stripped her gear and most of the obvious signs of her service. When the rum was gone, Shepard opted to return the favor, and ordered two glasses of whiskey.

Swirling the last bit of the smooth amber liquid in her glass, she looked at her data cuff. "Damnit," she muttered as she noticed just how long those three drinks had taken. They had clearly done more talking than she realized.

"Hot date?" he asked when she hopped off her stool like she'd been bitten.

She chuckled as she leaned forward and tried to get the bartender's attention. "Kind of. Got a really early flight in the morning."

He nodded knowingly and finished off his drink as the bartender slid them both their respective credit chits. "Let me put you in a cab."

"You really don't have to do that."

When he stood, it put them in very close proximity. Both of them tensed up when they realized just how tight the space they had been sharing was. Nyx stopped, looking up at him, and, for a moment, could not think straight. It was awkward but somehow perfect at the same time--the warmth in his eyes made her blood boil, and though she did not want to move away she took a step back, allowing her a moment to clear her head.

"I know. But I was raised to be a gentleman," he revealed with a soft smile that threatened to melt her.

She laid her hand on his forearm, which was draped across the bar. "I appreciate the gesture, I really do. But I'm just around the corner." It was a lie, but it sounded mostly sincere.

"Then let me walk you," he offered as she turned.

She looked back and smiled at him, thinking he was sweet, adamant, but sweet. Nyx didn't need an escort; she was fairly certain she was more dangerous than 95% of the people on that station at that moment. "Thanks for the drink," she offered with a little wave, before cutting through the crowd toward the door.

 

 

**iii.**

* * *

 

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko watched her cross the bar as he stood there frozen in the spot she'd left him in. When the door slid closed he snapped out of whatever stupor the mix of whiskey, rum, and her piercing sapphire eyes had placed him in. It only took a moment for him to decide to do something completely out of character and more than a little bit stupid. "Damnit," he whispered as he grabbed his chit off the bar and tucked it away.

His extrication from the crowd did not go as smoothly as hers seemed to, and by the time he hit the street and located her, she was about forty yards north of him. He relaxed a little, noticing she was taking her time. The coolness of the station air outside the club was comforting; he could not help wonder if that was the reason she was strolling so unhurriedly up the wide corridor.

Something about the way she avoided talking about herself combined with the very familiar silvery chain he'd noticed peeking out from beneath her collar a few times made Kaidan almost certain she was military, but as he watched her walk he started to doubt that assessment. Her hips swayed rhythmically with an erotic swish that set his nerves alight. Her honey blonde hair cascaded down her back in soft waves, and suddenly all he could think about was running his hands through it.

"What are you doing, Alenko?" he asked himself as he turned the corner she had and stopped.

The rationalist was starting to win the battle just as an excuse finally cropped up to allow him a fairly innocuous justification for his actions. Kaidan had been so focused on her that he'd nearly missed the sketchy little guy twitching. He was even more obvious than the officer felt.

The kid following her was thin set with dark eyes and Alenko was sure he couldn't be more than twenty. Something about the way the man moved set the officer on edge. Alenko looked back at her for a moment. She was walking, head down, tapping away at her omnitool. It was in that moment of her distraction that the other man made his move.

That area of the main commercial district of the station was less populated than the street the club was located on, though it did not matter to the marine; it could have been packed, and he'd have still responded the same way. He reached forward and halted the mugger's advance by wrapping him in a stasis field--freezing him in a lunge.

Using his biotics in public, especially in civilian areas, was something Alenko preferred to avoid, but it was the only thing he could do in that instance. He had simply been too far away to intervene in any other way. His drinking partner turned in time to see the young thug swathed in blue, and Kaidan stopped where he was as he prepared for the typical human reaction—screaming or something equally as dramatic and irate and scared.

Kaidan watched her for a moment. She looked from the thug to the Samaritan and smiled. With a nod she simply said, "Thanks, Canada."

He was taken aback by the moniker, but more so by the reaction, or lack of one. "You're welcome," he replied slowly, surprised that she was not worried about the display of biotics or his presence. "Sorry, I followed you. Just wanted to make sure … "

She waved it off as she took a few steps toward him. "Guess I should be glad you did."

His brow came together and he shrugged; she was nothing if not surprising. The stasis had worn off and the criminal had opted to attempt a hasty retreat and was clumsily scampering up the corridor. She rolled her eyes, turned and renewed the field with a quick twist of her wrist before Kaidan had the chance to.

Alenko's brow furrowed further.

"Pardon me," she offered with a slight, apologetic tip of her head before she walked toward her stunned quarry, who was frozen midstride. The kid looked at her with fear in his eyes, as she approached, her omnitool interface slipping away when she stopped and glanced at him.

"Don't worry, my little would-be criminal friend. The authorities will be here momentarily. Then I'll let you go," she said comfortingly, with a striking calmness in her eyes before she made the small mnemonic motion again and heard the target squeak.

"You're a biotic?" Kaidan offered when he caught up to her.

"So are you." Her voice and smile were playful, but her eyes twinkled with barely contained mirth. He was not sure what had caused it, but a part of him was hoping it was his persistence. "Now." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why did you follow me, Marine?"

He stuffed his hands in his pockets then looked at her in surprise when he realized what she'd called him. "Wait!" He studied her as she just raised her eyebrows at him, continuing to smile and look at him in that way that made it hard to think. "How'd you know my branch?"

The little shrug just made her all the more distracting. "Lucky guess?" She laughed when he looked at her with disbelief.

Her attention moved toward their silent third just long enough to shake her head at the thug before renewing his shimmering sheathe.

"I've spent my whole life around them. You've got that telltale look of determination, with an air of experience." Kaidan must have still looked incredulous, because she continued, "There's this look in your eye. Just something you only see in a select group of people." Her tone was serious for a moment, then she looked away and he realized his first instinct was right. She knew, because she was military as well.

When she looked back at him, the lightness had returned. "Then there's that," she offered, her eyes moving over him freely as she made a sweeping gesture in his direction. "Well-built, well-defined, and your t-shirt is … what? ... _one_ size too small?" When Kaidan smirked, she nodded knowingly. She ran her finger under the hem of the sleeve to emphasize her point before she tugged it gently and let it snap back against his skin. "Better to fit tightly across the chest and shoulders to accentuate the time you spend in the gym, most of which is actually for conditioning, not just ego."

He couldn't help but smile shyly, realizing she'd studied him just as closely as he had her. _She's good_. "Very perceptive."

"Well, it's in the job description."

He wanted to know what that work might entail, but their conversation was interrupted by the approaching sound of sirens. She spun and walked toward the landing air car, while Kaidan renewed the stasis on the young man.

"How're you doing tonight fellas?" she asked as the security officers joined her on the sidewalk. Kaidan felt a part of himself bristle when he noticed the officers ogle her a little too freely. She, however, chose to ignore it and gestured toward the young man swathed in a shimmering field of blue. "He is for you. Gift-wrapped and everything."

Kaidan tried to focus his attention on the officer questioning him, but too often his eye was drawn to the woman he'd met by chance and been entirely distracted by. She spoke quietly, but gestured rather actively as she did so. Once he even caught her gaze when he looked up at her, and she'd winked at him with a playful little grin that muddled his brain. Her interview was complete before his, but rather than going on her way, she approached him.

"Excuse me a moment, officer. Thanks again," she directed toward Kaidan.

"Any time," he replied.

She laughed lightly then closed the distance between them. For Kaidan, time seemed to crawl as she set her hand on his shoulder and leaned toward him on her tiptoes. She kissed his cheek lightly then whispered, "G'night, Canada," against his skin. She took two steps backward and offered him a little wave. "It was … interesting," she added as she turned and walked up the street.

All three of the men stared at her until she continued around the corner.

"So, do you follow women out of bars, a lot?" the human asked the lieutenant with a scowl.

"No. I don't," Alenko offered, still staring off in the direction she'd gone. Kaidan knew why the guy was asking. It was strange behavior and the biotic still was not entirely sure exactly why he'd followed her himself. He knew there was no way he could explain that to the security officer questioning him.

Kaidan just hadn't been willing to _not_ try something in order to continue whatever had started between them when she joined him in the relative isolation of the dark corner of the Corona Club. From the moment she asked to sit down next to him, he had not particularly been behaving in a manner typical for him. When he looked back up at the cop, he added, "But then I've never met a woman quite like that."

The officer tried not to smile, but Alenko could tell they were in agreement about the uniqueness of the female that had just left.

There were more questions, which the lieutenant attributed mainly to the fact that he had interfered in the attempted mugging and restrained the mugger bioticly. Though there were a fair number of biotics in the human population, only a small portion of those wore amps and used their abilities with any prowess. Those individuals were an unknown quantity for most people, and something feared by the general population. A lot of that was due to the health problems associated with exposure to element zero; even more of it was associated with the psychological issues and impairment that could accompany the procedure that allowed biotics to harness their power.

Kaidan shook it off. He didn't care if the cop was intimidated by it; _she_ hadn't been, which still surprised him. She'd seemed more concerned about him being in the service than the fact that he could manipulate things with his mind. In his experience usually it was the other way around: women were attracted to the uniform and freaked when they learned about the headjack.

A few minutes later, the officer was satisfied with the statement the marine offered, and it was as he watched the security officer climb into his vehicle that Kaidan realized he did not even know her name. He leaned there against the wall for a moment or two, as the flashing lights faded with the vehicle's departure. It only took a few minutes for him to convince himself it was for the best.

Despite the fact he had not met someone who'd truly piqued his interest instantly like that in too many years to count, he knew his new assignment would take precedence. It wouldn't be fair to start something new just when he was about to put out to cruise, he concluded. With that sliver of resolve he pushed away from the wall and walked off in the opposite direction as the distracting female had.

 

 

**iv.**

* * *

 

The door located at bulkhead SDB-E-27 was simply labeled A7; the only differentiation was the high security panel next to it. It was one of the few doors in the docking bays of Arcturus Station that were so highly secured. The petite blonde nodded at a blue clad MP just before she slipped through the door. The room was nondescript, except for a few touches that would go unnoticed by most. Lockers lined one wall. A large conference table dominated the mostly empty space. In the corner there was a heavy bag and free weights bookended by a pair of treadmills. There was a desk in the corner near a small shielded window.

Nyx walked over to the panel and pressed the control, lowering the shutter so she could take in the view one last time. For the last several years this room had been the one constant in her life. She was always on the move, from mission to mission, ship to ship, planet to planet. But she always came back here, with her squad. This was the home of Special Operations Team Arcturus Seven, though she knew that what really made this feel like home to her was not the location but the memories it held, memories of her teammates, friends--hell, her family.

"Everyone has to leave the nest sometime," she whispered to her reflection. It seemed apt in some ways but not in others. She was twenty-nine, and she'd left her parents' nest the day she turned 18. By twenty, she was a fully operational member of the special warfare community and for the last ten years she had seen a fair amount of the galaxy. She hopped out of the nest for N7 training, but was sent back as a squad leader and eventually a team commander. Now she was being taken from that comfortable and familiar place and forced into a position she never thought she'd hold.

Deep down somewhere, Shepard had expected that her career would end on some no name planet with an Alliance rifle in her hand, surrounded by a squad of warriors. But with her recall to Arcturus and her subsequent reassignment, that dark future seemed lost to her. Leaning her head against the glass she could still hear the words: Executive Officer of the frigate, _SSV Normandy_.

The commander stared into her own eyes, gritting her teeth again. "How could anyone think _you_ are cut out for the line?" she asked herself. "What the hell did you ever do that makes them think you could be the head mistress of reports and leave?" There was no answer there; she couldn't even scrounge for one. Sure, she'd pissed off a few flag officers here and there, but never bad enough for them not to want her toting a gun into their combat zones. She punched the glass lightly and pushed away from the wall.

After a moment of silent consideration, she grabbed her duffle and ducked into the head. The shower did not help, but at least she felt more relaxed. It had taken less than twenty-four hours for her world to buffet like a shuttle with engine trouble.

"Two years," she told her reflection in the mirror as she pulled her crisp white t-shirt on and tucked it into her BDUs. "After two years, you can request reassignment back to the teams."

When she pulled the black blouse out of the bag, she was struck with a frightening realization. This move could stall her career; two years was a long time to be non-operational. A sense of dread rolled over her. Even with an N7 designation she could be looking at an uphill battle to get back to special operations if she spent two years playing politics on some damn boat.

She started replaying it all in her head. Her team had returned to the ship they had launched from a week earlier and were met in the cargo bay by an ensign that had orders for Shepard to make an immediate turn around and put out for Arcturus for a briefing. She had not even had enough time to shower and grab her gear. Once on the station she'd been met by her commanding officer, Commander James Lassiter from Special Operations, and Fifth Fleet's Commanding Admiral Steven Hackett. Those two men sitting in an admiral's office in Arcturus Command waiting to see her as soon as she landed put her immediately on edge.

"Commander, Alliance Command has chosen to reassign you effective immediately. You're being tasked as the Executive Officer of the frigate _SSV Normandy_." It sounded more like something he'd memorized.

"Sir?" she'd stammered. The look he gave her made her adjust her response. "Yes, sir," she barked. "Thank you, sir."

But she knew it had to have been written on her face--the myriad of questions, and the disappointment. "Lassiter is going to take temporary command of your team, until we can find an adequate replacement. They'll be in good hands, Commander."

With that revelation, her chest tightened to the point that she felt she could hardly breathe. The team she'd designed, trained, and built was being handed over to a trusted colleague until someone could permanently take over the command, her command.

Hackett leaned forward and looked at her. "I'm sorry to do this on no notice. We had a very different timetable planned out. But as you are well aware, plans rarely work out the way they are intended."

"Indeed." She looked at both men alternately for a long moment. "Will that be all gentlemen?"

"Just one more thing, Shepard. You ship out at 0700. Report to the dock by 0500. And good hunting," Hackett replied as he stood and saluted her.

She copied the action quickly, as did Lassiter. Then they shook her hand, leaving her with a salutation that brought a question barreling to the front of her mind. _Good hunting_ was not the sort of thing one said to a line officer. That was usually the way her operators opted to say goodbye and good luck to one another before they set out on a mission or new assignment.

The way he said it made her hope that her reassignment might also be temporary. But there was a more realistic part of her that knew she'd never be back in that relatively unknown and often overlooked space hidden in the lower docking bays, at least not as a part of Arcturus Seven. Shepard stood in the doorway tucking in her uniform blouse and trying not to see this change as losing something, as losing some part of herself. She knew Hackett and he knew her--her strengths and her successes, even her failures. There had to be some reason for it that she was not seeing. The admiral was one of the shrewdest men she'd ever served under; she just had to muster up some hope.

When her omnitool chimed, the commander turned back to her duffle and zipped it closed before shouldering the sparsely filled bag. She stopped at what had been her desk and pulled an amber bottle from the bottom drawer. Her fingers ran over the familiar black and gold label: Bushmill's 21-year-old single malt Irish Whiskey. It was her grandfather's favorite and she always kept a bottle around even though she was not a whiskey drinker; like carrying his knife, it made her feel like he was close, like he was watching over her. Scrawling a quick note on a sheet of paper from the pad on her desk, she set the unopened bottle on top of the note in the center of the table. Her guys would enjoy her simple farewell and she knew that when they got back there would be a toast to the time they'd all served together.

Shepard pulled the case containing her recently cleaned armor and her sidearm off the table and stopped for a moment. This was the closest thing she'd had to home since she was a kid. Her chest tightened uncomfortably as she slipped through the hatch to make her way up to the more respectable docking bay where the Normandy awaited her maiden voyage.

 


	2. Ill-Timed Wonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard arrives for deployment of the SSV Normandy. The departure of the vessel is replete with surprises and reunions of all sorts when she learns the ship is under the command of Captain Anderson, a long-time family friend, who also mentored her throughout her career. This is not the only surprise in store for the dedicated officer: the presence of a turian Spectre and an unexpectedly familiar face serve up the promise of new trials and experiences for Shepard on what starts off feeling like the longest cruise she'll ever experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers-xforeverquotex, my paramour, Nova 42, and brownc0at. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece.

**FWN: 02 Ill-Timed Wonder**

 

**i.**

* * *

 

Captain David Anderson was not expecting to find his executive officer waiting for him on the docks. But when he approached the  _Normandy_ , he saw a sight that could only make him smile. The first time he'd met her she'd been perched much as she was now, legs pulled in tight sitting atop a few rows of crates. This time though she was studying the silhouette of the  _Normandy_  not hiding out from other Navy brats who took the name too literally. Except the scene before him was a little more odd, mixed with a heavy dose of ominous. One of her hands held open the pages of a book laying atop the crate, while the other busily twirled a familiar-looking knife. Her eyes, however, freely wandered the ship studying and admiring it with the attention of connoisseur. He knew the blade, it had been her grandfather's and she always carried it--Shepard never liked to be without it. She'd told him once that the old marine had told her it would keep her safe.

He smiled to himself as he approached; she looked well but tense, and he suspected some of that might be his fault. "Shepard!" he yelled from down the deck.

She looked over at him with surprise, then her lips curled into a warm smile that lit her eyes. "You have got to be kidding me!"

The movement was fluid and graceful, unexpected for someone with the reputation she had for destruction. She twisted off the crates landing almost noiselessly before gliding toward him. She grabbed his forearm and he pulled her into a tight, warm hug that bespoke the more than twenty years they'd known each other. "It's damn good to see you, Nyx," He looked down at her holding both her shoulders tightly. "I'm glad you didn't say no."

"Like anyone would say no to Hackett."

He looked down at her and grinned. "We both would, and you know it." He nodded at her gear. "What are you doing out here?"

It was her turn to grin as she shrugged. "They reassigned me, but I don't have clearance to get on the boat."

His distinctive laugh rumbled and echoed off the metal surfaces of the dock. "Goddamn red tape."

"Story of my life."

"Grab your gear. I'll give you the nickel tour before anyone else arrives."

Anderson had met Nyx's father during the First Contact War, and you never forget someone that's saved your life, especially more than once. When his old friend transferred ship-side to make sure his daughter always had someone there for her, David was a little bit envious. Not only of Taranis Shepard's family but the fact that the man was strong enough to walk away from everything he'd worked for just for the sake of his girl. Anderson had met Nyx by accident, noticed the eight-year-old hiding in the cargo bay and remembered his own childhood, being the only kid hanging out in cavernous hangars while his dad worked on planes. He'd done the same thing, hidden out on the tops of crates, scaffolds, any place with a good line of sight where he could go unnoticed and watch the goings on, watch over his father. Seeing the little blonde tucked up out of sight, he'd also been struck by the loneliness of it all and figured she could use someone to talk to.

So he'd surprised her and joined her for a few minutes. They talked about the book she'd been reading, something for her history class. And he was struck by the fact that she didn't seem lonely up there all by herself. In some ways he'd been in awe of her even then. But looking at the officer she'd become, he was even more so. Shepard had done things few expected of her; she'd accomplished more than some do in their entire careers and she wasn't even thirty yet. He also knew that she was about to set out after the one thing he'd been unable to accomplish in his career, which provided David the chance to guide her again, though he hated that this time she was wholly unaware of any of it.

When the airlock closed behind them she looked at him, keenly measuring him. "So tell me something I don't know. And let me qualify that by saying, I didn't even know you were on this bird. Is she yours?"

He shrugged noncommittally. As the other door opened, a very feminine electronic voice announced, "The commanding officer has come aboard."

"Guess so," Anderson replied grinning at her. Shepard shook her head as she followed him. "I'll give you the skinny. The  _Normandy_  is fast, quiet, and perfect for quick infiltrations and extractions."

He kept walking when she stopped, but when she didn't catch up he turned toward her. She was staring at him. "Then they're not… ?" She blinked a few times. "They aren't taking me out of the field?"

"No," he answered with a telling smile. "We're not taking you out of the field. We're just making you work a little harder for it." He noticed some of the tension seem to dissipate from her. "What did you think Hackett had suddenly gone stupid?"

 She grimaced as she caught up with him. "Thought maybe I'd rattled one chain too many, or maybe just … the wrong one."

"Not yet. Just don't try mine," he cautioned as he led her to the crew deck to stow her gear.

The tour was over quickly and covered the essentials--head, bed, comms, and the bridge. Then Anderson left her to her own explorations as he attended to the duties of command.

 

**ii.**

* * *

 

Shepard had been glad Anderson had not ordered her to join him on the docks. The commander liked to claim she was mostly allergic to the press. She also didn't much like crowds, unless they were armed to the teeth and under her command.

Watching the scene on the docks reminded Nyx just how much had changed and how fast. Her comings and goings were never a matter of public record. Not that she imagined her being assigned to the  _Normandy_  was all that newsworthy; it was merely the idea that the maiden voyage of the vessel she was on was a press event. All her past experiences with journalists were pure failures, except for the ones where she went unknown and unnamed.

The revelation that she would not be completely non-operational had stilled some of the storm, but Shepard was still reeling. She wasn't sure what precisely was happening, and more importantly she didn't know why. Though she knew her fate was dictated to her, to an extent, she didn't expect she would completely come to terms with her reassignment anytime soon. But she knew she had to lock her uneasiness down and get the job done. It was always how she approached her career, sidestep her life, even herself, and embrace the work, focus on the mission.

No matter how sleek the ship or enticing the descriptions, this was not where she saw her life or her career headed. Telling a ground-pounding operator that she is being reassigned to a line position as the Executive Officer of a prototype bird was beyond any concept of anything Shepard had ever seen in her future. She was only reluctantly the CO of her old squad; command was not something she sought, though it seemed it sought her. But the captain had offered her the promise that she needed to maybe make it through a two-year assignment to the line--the  _SSV Normandy_  was designed to get people places fast and quiet and Shepard was just the kind of person that needed a ride like that most of the time.

The crew was trickling in by 0600 and, after having bumped into too many people that stared at her wide-eyed, she decided to find a low traffic area to skulk in and observe from, which was how she wound up in the cockpit. The scene on the gangway past the ship was familiar to her but more so from a different point of view. All her life she'd been part of the crowd on the other side of the dock, wishing one of her parents, usually her mom, safe journey and watching them leave. The commotion was a little different from her current vantage point: families, cameras, press, brass, all gathered to send the  _SSV Normandy_  off into the rolling black sea between the stars--entrusting this state-of-the-art vessel with the safety of their loved ones. Part of her was glad to miss the pageantry of it all; it was not an event Shepard saw herself playing part in.

Anderson finally returned to the boat, relieved by command of having to press any more flesh or give any more interviews. He opted to join his XO in the cockpit, though he stood in a more obvious location than Shepard had chosen. "Commander," he greeted, passing her a mug of coffee. "Any of those yours?"

She heard the airlock close then shook her head. "They're both cruising."

He nodded silently. "Thought there was a …"

She slowly turned her head and looked at him incredulously.

"What?" he shrugged.

 She was still eyeing him in a way that made him feel a little like prey.

"Last I heard there was some admiral's boy, right?" he asked looking at her.

"No, sir. Suffice to say there hasn't been a … one of those since … well, let's just say long enough."  _Combat operational N7s and lovesick men don't mix well._  She lifted the cup to her lips. "And as for the admiral's  _boy_. That was precisely the problem." She looked back out the window and shifted away from the uncomfortable topic. "Parents are cruising. Friends are probably stomping dirt somewhere." Another small group of crew moved down the bridge from the airlock. "You?" She thought she knew the answer, but she asked anyway. He'd been divorced since before she enlisted for the same reasons she was single--trying to mix combat and commitment often seemed like trying to mix oil and water, sometimes you got a wonderful concoction out of it, but all too often the parts just separated and went sour.

"I did get a bottle of scotch from Admiral Hackett," he disclosed with a playful tone.

She thought about it for a moment before she said it. But she took the shot. "Hmm. Very nice. Never would have guessed, but you two do make a cute couple." She'd surprised him; he was choking on the coffee he'd managed to inhale rather than spit all over the helm. Shepard took his mug and slapped him on the back a few times. "You all right there, Captain?"

"Fine." He took his mug back when she held it out to him. "Goddamnit, Shepard. I'd almost forgotten."

"Glad I could remind you," she replied matter-of-factly.

He chuckled at her and shook his head. "What do you think of the  _Normandy_?"

"She's probably the most beautiful ship I've ever seen. And that whole stealth aspect. Absolutely stellar. Every SpecOps team could use one."

"True, but I don't think that's in the budget."

"It’s a crying shame. But I must say it should be interesting to be the one to kick the tires."

Anderson looked at her pointedly. "Do not scratch my ship," he ordered, gesticulating with his mug.

"Yes, Dad," she replied, holding up her hands in mock surrender.

They were both chuckling when the airlock opened again, and the sound of scampering footsteps caused the commander to peek around the corner in time to see two crewmen hurry up the walkway, dropping nervous glances behind them as the third party walked slowly into the ship. "Captain. Commander," the tall turian addressed with a discreet nod to each in turn.

Shepard straightened and moved to her commanding officer's side. The turian's assessing gaze was not something she was uncomfortable with; most humans she worked with and every turian she'd ever met had eyed her similarly. He was looking for a sign of weakness, waiting for her to flinch. And it wasn't going to happen, but she did return the inspection in kind.

"Glad you could make it," Captain Anderson said, shaking the alien's hand, choosing to ignore the silent confrontation he was party to. "Shepard. This is Nihlus Kryik, Council Spectre."

She knew who he was; his reputation loomed large, and she'd heard about him when she worked with the turian special forces years earlier. He'd risen out of their ranks. "Lieutenant Commander Nyx Shepard," she replied.

"I am aware. Good to finally make your acquaintance," he intoned. He betrayed nothing. Though Shepard had a few turians she would call friends, she was not adept at reading them in the slightest. Nihlus let go of her hand and turned to the CO. "Can we speak privately, Captain?" Anderson ushered the turian off the bridge.

Within minutes Shepard found herself joined in the cockpit by someone who actually needed to be there. "Excuse me, ma'am," greeted a lanky man less than a head taller than Shepard. As he slid past her carefully, his eyes skimmed her uniform, stopping on the telltale patch that tended to declare her identity for a few seconds. "Commander," he corrected as he straightened and saluted sharply.

She returned it. "Shepard," she advised with a questioning raise of her eyebrows.

He shook his head clear after a moment realizing what she was waiting for. "Ah, … Moreau, helmsman."

The commander nodded. Flight Lieutenant Jeff "Joker" Moreau--his was one of the few personnel files she'd gotten through before people started arriving. He tentatively shook her hand when she offered it. "G’morning, Lieutenant."

After he slipped into his seat, he stared at the controls, traces of pure awe etched on his features and present in the delicate way he touched the panels. If she hadn't known better she'd have thought he was praying.  _Hell, maybe he is_.  _This ship must be a pilot's version of heaven or maybe even God_.

A few hours earlier she had realized precisely why the brass chose her for a position most wouldn't consider an operational N7 officer for. And it was all contained in a few sentences buried in the stack of briefings Anderson had forwarded her.  _"Prototype deep scout frigate… optimized for solo reconnaissance missions deep within unstable regions."_  The details of its stealth systems and drive core were relatively lost on her, except to assure her that wherever she was going the  _Normandy_  would get her there fast and unseen.

Shepard opted to slip into the co-pilot's seat and sip her coffee. Joker finally glanced over at her. "What are you doing?"

"Drinking coffee," she said, showing him the mug more clearly in case he missed it.

He nodded, but watched her out of the corner of his eye. "Don't touch that," he said quickly when she leaned toward the console and eyed one of the telemetry readings.

She wasn’t a pilot by trade, but like all other N7s, she knew enough to get a bird through a relay or land one in an emergency or steal one, if the situation called for it. On this ship, she knew there were enough other people that could take the helm that her emergency flight training wouldn't come into play. She liked flying well enough, but it wasn’t her calling. She was better on the ground and with a gun.

She tapped her temple. "Eyes only. I wasn't going to touch."

"Good," he muttered a little too loudly. It was her turn to shoot him a look. "What? I heard about the shuttle you  _tried_  to pilot back during some training exercise on Earth."

She laughed loudly at the recollection. It was bright and full of mirth. People within earshot on the bridge couldn't help but smile in response. "How the hell did you hear about that?"

"I have friends. They like to talk." He was smiling at his console. He'd taken a risk by mentioning it, and she didn't mind that he knew about one of her early failures.

"Man." She sighed overdramatically. "Crash one little shuttle into your CO's car and you never live it down."

"And the XO's and the Medical Officer's," Joker added quietly. "Oh"--he held up his finger--"and the Command Chief's."

"Damn, you've got good intel."

"What can I say, pilots are a chatty bunch," he replied with a wink.

"Are they now?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Some of them can be."

She took his reply at face value, as well as the unspoken suggestion in it. "Well, hell. I really wanted to take this beauty for a spin," she replied with a slump in her shoulders.

"Over my dead body," Joker said seriously to his console.

Shepard hopped out of the chair she'd taken up and looked down at him with a dark mischievous smirk. "The pilot said to the hand-to-hand expert."

Joker tilted his head and looked her in the eye. "But see, you wouldn't kill me, Commander. Not after you see what I can make this beauty do."

Shepard laughed and patted the top of his chair, as he returned his attention to the panels. She hadn't gotten through all the personnel files, but she had read Moreau's, including the recommendation from the turian representative. It was a bold move, one she admired. The flight lieutenant knew he was the best man for the job and he wasn’t about to let anyone tell him different. She’d never stolen an entire ship to prove she was the person you wanted handling a mission, but she could appreciate the gesture. He’d out flown all the guys they scrambled to bring him back in, then docked the ship and surrendered. It was a calculated risk that paid off in the end; he'd impressed the turians and several officers including Hackett and Anderson. 

Joker had guts and skill--something that went a long way with Shepard. She couldn't help but like someone who would go to such great lengths to prove he was the best man for the job. It was a trait she could appreciate and one she'd demonstrated more than once. Plus Joker didn't seem to be intimidated by her, which she appreciated.

"Guess I'll leave you to it, Mr. Moreau."

 

**iii.**

* * *

 

Several of the  _Normandy_ 's officers, on their way to the ship, were stopped by press officers and hand delivered to various reporters. They had all been briefed on what could and could not be said, but Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was hoping to avoid it. He'd almost managed to get through the throng of people when a very chipper ensign grabbed his arm.

"There you are, Lieutenant. I thought I'd missed you," she chimed, dragging him back into the crowd.

 _I should be so lucky_ , he thought as he followed the brunette toward a small, smiling Asian woman. "Emily Wong, this is Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko."

The young woman shook his hand. "You're the head of the marine detail aboard the  _Normandy_ , correct?" she asked through narrowed eyes.

He could tell there was something buried beneath the fairly innocuous question. "Yes," he answered as the ensign peeled away and made a beeline for another officer trying to escape.

"So, have you worked with Commander Shepard before?"

"No, Miss Wong, I have not." He studied the reporter; her face betrayed her surprise, which explained why he'd never seen her on one of the networks, though her name was relatively familiar.

"Are you aware of her reputation for--?"

"Pardon me, Miss Wong. I do not know the Commander, and while I do know of her, it is likely that your information on her is better than mine. Do you have any questions about the  _Normandy_  I can answer?"

Wong smiled, and it made Kaidan feel slightly more uneasy. He didn't like reporters and he wasn't a social butterfly like Pressly, who seemed to be thoroughly in control of the angry little man who was hounding him for information.

"No. I think I've got everything I need." She tapped her omnitool closed and he assumed the recording had stopped. "Shepard's going to like you. Tell her I said hi."

Kaidan watched her move toward Pressly with that hungry look back in her eye. He glanced around and noticed the press officer seemed distracted enough to allow for another escape attempt. He slipped through the crowd and up the gangway, but was halted by the airlock. The chime of his omnitool extended the promise of distraction while he waited for the airlock to clear. A message from Joker flagged important flashed at him; he laughed to himself as he tapped at the interface, knowing the pilot's version of important rarely qualified as such.

_Joker: Hey, man! You here yet?_

_KAlenko: No not quite. The press ninja grabbed me and fed me to a reporter._

_Joker: Damn! Glad I skated past her when she was wrangling Adams._

_Joker: Oh, I grabbed you a bunk in the darkest corner like you were saying earlier._

_KAlenko: Appreciate it. Thanks._

_Joker: Hey, no problem. Just met Shepard._

_KAlenko: Really?_

_Joker: She's so not at all what I was expecting._

Kaidan leaned against the docking sleeve of the gangway.   _KAlenko: How so?_

_Joker: She actually has a sense of humor, though for a second I thought she was going to eat me alive._

_KAlenko: That's because of your tendency to engage your mouth before your brain._

_Joker: Yeah. Whatever._

Kaidan grabbed his bag and stepped into the airlock once it opened.

_Joker: You never worked with her, right?_

_KAlenko: No. Why does everyone want to know that?_

_Joker: Dunno, but damn!_

_KAlenko: What?_

_Joker: She doesn't look like those pictures from the Blitz Nunez was flashing around last week. Hell, she doesn't look like Special Forces._

_Joker: Oh! BTW, get your ass up here so we can get this flight check kicked out._

_KAlenko: OMW. In the airlock now._

_Joker: Hurry the hell up already._

As he stepped onto the ship, Joker was peeking back around his chair. "She might still be on the bridge. Tell me what you think when you get back up here. And in case you missed it … Hurry!"

Kaidan laughed and made his way below decks to drop his gear. As he crossed the crew deck and trotted up the stairs, he stretched his neck to relieve the bit of tension he felt building up there, attributing it to the short stint with the reporter. As much as he knew it didn't matter, he couldn't help be curious about Joker's observations about Shepard. The only one on the ship that could claim to have met her in person as far as he knew was Anderson, though Corporal Richard Jenkins, one of the marine detail, was a huge fan. But as for Alenko, he knew what most anyone else knew: the executive officer of the  _Normandy_  was a highly decorated N7 with almost as much combat experience as the captain. The lieutenant wasn't sure what he was expecting, but part of him figured on someone serious, dedicated, and possibly severe in temperament.

He glanced around the CIC, but the only females were some of the enlisted sailors he'd seen on the bridge before. Then the stark glint of white caught his eye; but for the sliver of undershirt peeking out of the black BDUs, he might have missed the figure entirely. The uniform served to help camouflage her in the shadowy corner of the CIC opposite the door he'd entered through. At least, he guessed it was Shepard because the few operational N7s he'd seen all wore black BDUs. Then he noticed the white lettering of the patch and knew his guess was right. She seemed oblivious, or maybe that's what she wanted people to think. Jenkins had mentioned one evening that N7s saw everything, but Alenko couldn't help but think that was part of the mystique about them.

"Shepard!" The captain's voice rang across the deck and Kaidan watched her straighten and close the book she'd been reading--he was surprised to see an actual book in her hands; they were not unheard of but they were rare. Within a few steps, she looked up and stopped cold as her eyes met his.

For Kaidan everything froze. Those eyes had haunted him for the last twelve hours, then she smiled slightly, not as telling as the one she'd flashed at him as she walked away the night before, but it was still warm and enticing. For a moment he forgot how to breathe as he gazed at her, thrilled by her smile and shocked to see her again. Then, as if realizing everything he had forgotten too, her eyes changed, mirroring the anxiety he began to feel about seeing her there--on the bridge of the  _Normandy_. She shook her head and looked away; when freed from her intense gaze, Kaidan felt like he could breathe again, though not well due to the tightness in his chest. When she disappeared into the communications room, he turned and continued on his way to the helm in a bit of a fog.

He'd thought about it last night, even that morning--running into her again. But he never imagined it happening at all, certainly not on the ship.  _Why did it have to be here of all places?_  He'd almost had himself convinced he'd never see her again, had almost chalked the whole evening up to a missed opportunity.  _And that's precisely what it was_ , the rational side of his brain argued.  _Whatever happened last night it ended the moment you stepped on this ship_ , he tried to convince himself, but he wasn't sure it was working.

When he caught sight of the helm consoles he couldn't help the thought that rushed into his head.  _Oh, God! I'll be spending the next ten hours with Joker._  If Shepard came to the cockpit during that time, Moreau would be sure to pick up on Alenko's unease. Kaidan took a deep breath and realized he'd just have to hope she would avoid the bridge. Or maybe he would get lucky and manage to be able to push it all into the background. He shook his head, knowing that probably wouldn't happen. Perhaps he could just go for focusing his attention elsewhere. In this instance, perhaps the consoles would be his friends and make it possible to not look like a stark raving schoolboy with a crush if she happened into that part of the ship.

Joker looked over at the staff lieutenant as Alenko slipped into the chair to the pilot's right. "Tell me she was still on the bridge."

"Uh huh."  _Yes, good short answers._ Kaidan figured it might be best to respond to his associate's questioning the same way he had the reporter--succinct answers that held no promise of undisclosed information.

"Tell me the truth. Not what you were expecting, right?"

Alenko turned his attention to the checklist. "Nope." Kaidan was quickly realizing that the consoles might save him from more than just Shepard.

"Holy hell!" Joker was shaking his head as he tweaked a set of output calibrations. "I mean a guy I know told me I wouldn't believe my eyes. But I thought he meant she'd look like a female krogan. Not …"

The last two steps were loud enough to be heard and both men turned toward them. "While I have been compared to a krogan before, this is the first time it's been a female one. Have you ever actually seen a female krogan?" Shepard asked matter-of-factly with one eyebrow cocked slightly higher than the other as she eyed the pilot.

"Sorry about that, Commander," Joker responded, turning his attention back to the panel in front of him and slouching in his seat. "And no, ma'am, I haven't."

"Not a problem, Flight Lieutenant. Just might want to exercise a little more caution in the future. I've heard they can be quite sensitive about such things. Female krogan, that is," she suggested as her eyes moved to the officer still facing her.

Kaidan felt like a deer in headlights. The console had betrayed him.

She watched him for what felt like forever, though the rational side of his brain knew it was mere seconds. "Lieutenant Commander Nyx Shepard," she announced, offering him her hand.

He opted to try to bury his discomfort under protocol and hopped out of his chair before shaking her hand. For a moment he thought it was him, then with a glance down he realized the tingle tickling his palm was her--the barest hint of a faintly blue corona slicked intermittently around her hand. When she realized it, she pulled her hand back and clasped it behind her back as her entire body stiffened in response. "Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. Tasked with leading the marine detail, ma'am."

The flex of her jaw and the flash in her eyes told him more than he wanted to know. The idea of it was just as hard for her to take as him. Perhaps she was hoping that because he was up front with Joker that he'd be easier for her to avoid. But finding out she would be working with him seemed to set her off-kilter. It was something he hadn't imagined seeing. Shepard was described as this buttoned-down always-in-control officer. In that moment he was seeing something else, but he wasn't sure what yet.

"Good to meet you. Anderson speaks highly of you. I'll leave you gentlemen to it." She turned and then stopped. "Mr. Moreau, I need an estimated time to completion on those checks."

"No more than seventy-five minutes, ma'am. I'll see if I can make it less," Joker told his console.

"I'll inform the Captain."

Kaidan looked over at his friend, whose eyes widened with the unspoken question that was in both their minds.  _What the hell just happened?_  He could tell by the look on Joker's face that both men were expecting to wind up on the business end of an ass chewing after the krogan remark, but the commander didn't balk. Then there was the introduction. He wondered if that had happened when she sat next to him at the bar the previous night if he'd be quite in the predicament he was currently. He knew the answer--if either of them had even declared rank, he knew he'd balk. And figured she would have probably walked away before her drink arrived. Kaidan shook his head and returned to the task at hand.  _Combat distraction with distraction_ \--he knew it would only work for so long, but he hoped by the time it stopped working he'd find a way around it, find a way out.

 

 

**iv.**

* * *

 

Shepard was glad Anderson had revealed all the little secrets of the ship in his nickel tour. After the introduction that came way too late, she was certain that her reassignment just became way too long. The gym was a tucked away little area on the cargo deck and she needed a place to hide. When she passed through the hatch she pulled off her BDU blouse and made a beeline for the treadmill. At that moment politeness was not her concern. Besides, she had the room to herself, so who would complain about her taste in music? She turned on something loud with a pounding bass line and tweaked the machine's settings.

The music drowned the sound of her voice as she talked to herself. "What the hell were you thinking, Nyx? You knew he was military before you opened your damn mouth. Then he gets all chivalrous and you go soft in the head."

She gritted her teeth and quickened her pace in an effort to push past the thought or maybe outrun it. Shepard lost herself in the combination of the music and the sound of her breathing for several minutes before her mind caught back up with her.

"And how the hell did you wind up flirting with one of the handful of marines on the entire station who is completely off limits?"

Nyx didn't flirt. The rare times she went out it was usually with friends or crew. She hadn't been on a date in longer than she wanted to admit. And last night she'd almost done something colossally stupid and the only things that had stopped her were the time and a mugger.

Slowing her pace, Shepard considered her options. Command would not transfer her out. She doubted he'd request a transfer. She stopped for a moment, looked up at the ceiling, and contemplated yelling profanities at the bulkhead. The loud music might go ignored, though not necessarily unnoticed, but her yelling a vibrant string of random expletives might raise a few questions, at least about her sanity if nothing else.

Shepard sprang off the treadmill and glanced over at the reflective wall opposite her. "What are you thinking? Nothing happened. So you had a few drinks with a squad mate. Nothing you haven't done a million times before."

She stared at herself. That statement was only partly true and she knew it. Usually when she drank with her fellow soldiers she wasn't completely aware of her pulse, nor did she study them quite as thoroughly as she had the lieutenant.

"Damnit."

Her hands rested on her hips as she paced in a short line along a seam in the deck. "Nothing happened." Trying to convince herself, she whispered it with each step.

"And nothing will," she added, looking up at herself again. The glare was one she usually saved for others who needed convincing, but part of her hoped it might work as well on herself as she repeated it in her most commanding tone. "And nothing will."

Her blouse was in her hand as she stalked out of the gym, after taking a moment to blank her features. No one else needed to know that the executive officer was irritated with herself, and they most certainly didn't need to know she was struggling against an irrational interest in a man on that boat.

After her stint in the gym and an invigorating shower, Shepard found a nice quiet spot where she knew she'd go relatively unnoticed. There were only a few female officers aboard the  _Normandy_ , which left the female Officers' Quarters relatively barren. But at least the commander could finish up the briefings Anderson had forwarded in relative peace.

Trudging through tech write ups on the ship, duty rosters, and the detailed description of her own position on the vessel made her eyes burn. But she knew she'd have to get through it all eventually so she pushed on to the personnel files. Most of them were cursory: name, rank, specialty, service history, positive and negative write ups of any note, and commendations. The service record books of the ship's officers mirrored those of the enlisted men. Anderson had compiled the records of the marine detail in one file and these were more thorough, at least as far as Shepard's clearance would allow.

Once she got through them, Nyx leaned back in her chair and laced her fingers behind her neck.  _At least Anderson remembered_ , she thought as she considered the people he'd pulled for the  _Normandy_ 's detail: Alenko, Chief McMillan, and Corporals Crosby, Jenkins, and Niveda.  _Two of everything, redundancy_. Well, except for another N7, but that was to be expected. The ship already had two; three would be unheard of for one command. And there simply weren't enough soldiers bearing that designation to allow for it.

Shepard had to admit the  _Normandy's_  squad might be relatively green, but they were a well-rounded group. All of them had decent marksmanship scores, two boasting sniper tabs. Three were trained as combat engineers. Then there were the two biotics, both officers. Reading Alenko's jacket only confirmed that Shepard would have to maintain control; Anderson was right, there was a lot of potential there. The recommendations and commendations were striking and bespoke his command potential as well as his combat experience.

Her fingers tapped absently on the table as she considered her options. She needed to see these people in action, but this was a shakedown cruise. That was not likely to happen. So she'd have to do the next best thing.  _Push them, stress them, and test their limits_ , she decided as she stood and crossed the room.


	3. Control & Amplitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy's shakedown it not only technical; the timing of the departure left Shepard with no time to train the marine detail. A combination of things lead her to try an alternate training method that she hopes will help with team building as well as held her get a bead on the Staff Lieutenant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acknowledgements: I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers-xforeverquotex, my paramour, and brownc0at. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece.

**FWN: 03 Control and Amplitude**

**i.**

* * *

The first few days of the shakedown run had been spent acclimating everyone to the ship's schedule. They ran on a twenty-four-hour cycle that corresponded with Earth's for ease of communication with Command. Shepard set out requirements for two hours of physical training per day for the marines in the ship's detail, which she liberally extended on a regular basis.

The chief and the corporals were tasked to back up the MP security detachment on the ship. Crosby and McMillan had been detailed to ships before and understood the expectation of the cross-duty assignment, but it wasn't a familiar assignment for Niveda or Jenkins. Despite this, the two younger servicemen took to it quickly. Alenko spent his time with the flight and engineering crews, filling in wherever he was needed, though he was officially designated to the flight crew.

Their daily drills were limited to hand-to-hand combat and physical training. Unfortunately, the ship didn't have full training facilities like other larger vessels in the fleet. There wasn't a full running track or separate training rooms, and there was no range to speak or, not even a modified one. Frigates were small, fast vessels, and they were lucky that this one's design allowed for a reasonably-sized gym in the cargo bay.

Leaning against the wall, Kaidan struggled to get his breath, just like all the rest of them-well, except for Shepard. She wasn't winded despite the fact that she'd been right there with them every step, every exercise, though she occasionally stepped out to yell her own special brand of encouragement at them both individually and as a group.

"All right," she said reluctantly. "Dismissed. But I'll see your smiling faces bright and early tomorrow."

As the enlisted members of the detail filed out of the room, she watched them, arms crossed over her chest. Alenko couldn't really read her, but he had started picking up on things and the look on her face told him she considering something, perhaps the torture for tomorrow, or maybe just wondering what was on the menu for the day in the mess. That much he still couldn't tell yet.

"What's on your mind, Lieutenant?" she asked, seeming to notice he'd been studying her.

"Not much right now ma'am. Too tired to think." They both laughed brightly. "This is reminding me of candidacy."

"Yeah, that's the point."

The commander walked over to one of the treadmills and tapped the console a few times. He couldn't fathom it. After what they'd just done she was going for a jog on top of it. The muscles in his legs ached at the thought of it.

"Stress them and test them?" he muttered, crossing toward her.

"Along those lines. Oh and fair warning," she offered as she tapped at the controls of the treadmill, increasing the pace a little. "Eat a big breakfast tomorrow."

He just looked over at her curiously as he leaned against the machine next to the one she was on.

"There seems to be an overwhelming lack of experience working with biotics in the Alliance military. In my time I've found your people are a little easier about it if they know what you can do  _to_  them as well as  _for_  them." Her tone was matter of fact.

He was sure his surprise was written all over his face. She was being rather nonchalant about her suggestion; despite people like he and Shepard commonly joining the service, most soldiers were extremely trepid about working with biotics. He didn't realize that the suggestion came from personal experience, and that she had put each of her old team members through their paces in the past precisely because she found it helped to ease the tension associated with a lack of direct knowledge.

"You're just jerking me around, right? Trying to gauge my response?"

"Not in the least."

"You want me to …?" He wasn't sure what she wanted him to do.

"It'll be much nicer if you do it. Plus, they are already intimidated by me. And a good friend of mine always says: a little healthy fear of your direct superiors isn't a  _bad_  thing." She was grinning widely and her pace hadn't faltered once during their conversation Shepard took long steady strides as she ran toward nowhere, she just seemed to be enjoying it.

"That part was a joke." The glint in her eye and the casual shrug made Kaidan wonder if it really was a joke. Then her tone went serious again. "Think of it like weapons training, they need to know  _what_  and  _who_ they are working with. My guess is you'll be gentler than me."

"Why would you say that?"

"You've been pulling punches with the Chief in hand-to-hand," she said flatly as she came to a sudden halt and stepped off the machine.

_Oh, shit. Jenkins had said that N7s could see it all. He just didn't suggest what exactly_ all _entailed._  "Noticed that?" he asked the floor tile beneath his boots.

"Why?"

Kaidan looked at her again straightening and crossing his arms over his chest. "Chief's a nice guy. We've worked together before. And I didn't want to lay him out in front of them all."

"Like I'm going to do to you tomorrow?" she interrupted his thought as she walked across the room and grabbed her water bottle. He stared after her for a stunned moment then approached her. She glanced up at him. "Yeah, I'm serious."

"For what reason?"

"There has to be a reason?"

It seemed like a dare for a moment. Then he realized she was still watching him.  _Observing me, more like_. He didn't reply. He wasn't sure if she wanted one or not, but he didn't have an answer for that question anyway. Thinking back he'd have to wager that most of his instructors and trainers didn't really need a reason for a training exercise. Though Kaidan still wonder what might be the impetus for the suggestion that Shepard had made.

She finally looked away as she stretched her neck, rubbing a one spot for a moment. It made him realize she wasn't as immune to the fatigue they were all feeling as he'd initially considered.

"They're all being too nice. Training's not about nice. You put each other through your paces to make sure that when you need that person to have your back, they  _damn well_ _have your back_. You learn what to expect from one another. Learn to count on people. Learn to read them, anticipate them," she continued, as her gaze fell on him again. "Everyone's playing nice. And you get to be the martyr for the team. Besides, you could get lucky, and knock me on my ass. Doubtful, but it could happen."

"Is that why you warned me?"

She walked backward toward the door. The look on her face was an impish dare and it both intimidated and enticed him all at once. "Hey, I try to be fair."

He blinked at her a few times, waiting for his head clear, before he replied, "Then why didn't you warn them?"

"They are just getting toyed with. Tossed around a bit," she explained with a dismissive wave of her hand. "They'll love it. They always do. See you in the morning," Shepard concluded as she slipped out the door.

_Yeah, and what are you doing to me?_  He watched her pass out of sight through the doorway as he stood there, seemingly cemented to that spot from fatigue and uncertainty.  _There is no way that this will go well_.

When Alenko made his way to the cockpit, he opted to do a little research and pulled up the commander's service record on one of his consoles.

"What's that?" Joker asked, leaning over just enough that he could eye the text.

"Shepard's jacket."

The pilot studied his friend for a moment, which encouraged Alenko to reveal what Shepard had announced less than an hour earlier. "Are you cracked, Alenko? Going brain-to-brain with  _the_   _Commander Shepard_? You're going to wind up a smear on a bulkhead, man."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

With a shrug, Joker replied, "Against anyone else on this ship, well, except maybe Anderson and the turian, I'd put my money on you. But even if she doesn't get close enough to drop you, you are going to go down."

"How can you be so sure? I can hold my own, you know." Kaidan was a little offended that his friend was siding with his challenger, though if he were honest with himself Joker's assessment was probably right on target.

Joker laughed ominously. "Yeah, but I don't think that's going to help you with Shepard," Joker quipped and Kaidan rolled his eyes, ignoring the reference and returning his focus to the information on his XO.

Everything in her file backed the pilot's prediction up. Though it didn't talk about her skill in great detail, it mentioned her being a very powerful biotic with assessment scores off the charts when she enlisted. About the only criticism he found about her prowess was her lack of finesse in using her biotics and she depended on firearms neglecting her biotic abilities. He couldn't help but wonder if that last factor was compounded by her role as an N7.

Something she said made him wonder if her own experience working with biotics was limited, or maybe she leaned on her weapon prowess because she just didn't have the in depth training some biotics got. He shook off memories of his own training and continued to peruse one instructor's evaluation of her abilities:  _Striking power, which she neglects. Could use more training in control. Her abilities tend to be large but weaker than they could be. Exercising more precision could lead to a significant increase in the amplitude of her powers. At this time she remains heavily reliant on emotional and situational triggers._

The last line stood out to him, and he couldn't help but wonder what precisely they meant. He was aware that biotics in emotionally-charged situations could show signs, and that sometimes people could spike higher given certain emotional triggers-like fear and self-preservation. That fact he knew first hand.

The next morning Alenko had taken her suggestion and fueled up for a grueling day. He just hoped it wouldn't end with him curled up in the fetal position in a dark corner in the medical bay. There were extra crewmen in the gym when he arrived, and not just medics. Off-duty crew were milling around the edges of the gym, in the doorway, and in the cargo bay beyond.

_Joker_ , he groaned inwardly.

Dr. Chakwas shot him a curious glance when he stepped into the relatively confined space lined with mats on three walls and mirrors on the last. Shepard must have gotten there first and prepped the room, it was an idea that should be comforting but only served to increase his lingering anxiety.

"Good Morning, Doctor," he said as he came to stand next to her.

Dr. Karin Chakwas eyed him carefully for a moment. "You wouldn't be willing to tell me why I was asked to be here with multiple medics on hand, would you?"

"The commander didn't tell you?" he asked cautiously. Chakwas was measuring his response. Alenko shrugged, surveying the activity in the room. Shepard had set it up for sparing, and the extra mats did not go unnoticed.

"Come on, now," Shepard offered from behind them. "If I told her everything, the good doctor here would have to tell me all the reasons why I shouldn't do it. Then she'd have to threaten me. Possibly even call Dad, who may or may not feel the need to intervene."

Alenko had to stifle a laugh at her reference to their captain.

"Then I'd have to be stubborn and rebellious, and ignore it all. Probably get multiple lectures for disobeying orders, possibly even a nasty little letter added to my book. Way too much trouble." She smiled at the doctor and Alenko was sure Chakwas lost a little color.

Shepard's volume rose with the next statements. "All right people. I'd like to thank our  _Normandy_  med staff for being here. More than you know." She looked at the squad she was trying to hone and smiled in a way that could only be meant to generate worry, if not a little fear. "How many of you have worked with a biotic in the past?"

Kaidan raised his hand, as did McMillan as he shot a quick glance at the lieutenant. Shepard nodded, she'd read in their files that they'd done a tour together and Alenko had mentioned it.

"How many have gone up against one?"

Only Alenko this time.

"That's about what I thought. So, Lieutenant, you ready?" All the eyes in the room were suddenly on him.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied without a trace of the concern he felt about this little exercise. He didn't do a lot of sparring with biotics, and never with anyone with actual combat experience. But he was determined that no one but himself would be aware of his hesitance.

She made a dramatic gesture toward the matted area then winked at Chakwas. As she passed by the doctor, Chakwas grabbed Shepard's arm and whispered sharply in the younger woman's ear. Shepard smiled and nodded a few times. "Oh, it'll be fine," she said a little more loudly to the doctor. Then turned her attention to her junior officer and called, "Are you worried, Lieutenant?"

"Not at all, ma'am," he lied, rather convincingly he thought, as he turned to face her.

Shepard stopped at the edge of the mat and turned her back to him; she ignored the concerned exchanges of the medical staff and looked at her detail. "I've noticed something the past few days. Even though I've asked you not to, told you not to, and  _ordered_  you  _not_  to," she said with overdramatic emphasis. "You people are still pulling punches and taking it easy on your teammates. Even Alenko did it. Now in the past that would have probably meant a lot of yelling on my part and people getting run to the brink of exhaustion." She stopped moving and set her hands on her hips. "But we don't have that kind of time here. So we're going to try this by the trickle down method."

Her expression became serious in the blink of an eye as she leaned forward, her hands crossed over her chest. "But after this display-the next person to pull a punch goes toe to toe with me." She grinned at the reaction. "Ah good, we understand one another. I do so hate to repeat myself," she added lightly as she glanced back at the lieutenant.

The shuffling near the door announced the arrival of the captain and the Spectre. He hadn't figured this little event would go unnoticed, especially since Joker knew about it, but he hadn't expected this kind of audience. The lieutenant knew that he probably shouldn't have informed the most well-connected man on the ship about the match, but he'd needed someone to talk to about all this. Because he was just as intimidated by Shepard as much of the rest of the crew, though the only person he'd ever admitted it to was the pilot.

Alenko was smart enough to know that officers shouldn't go around broadcasting their weaknesses, or perceived weaknesses, to the rest of the crew. He only told Joker because he knew that as chatty and informative as the helmsman of the  _Normandy_  could be, Jeff was a stand up guy who knew precisely what could and should be said and what needed to remain in the vault.

The commander nodded to the men at the door then took a deep breath and crossed the mat toward the Kaidan. Every move was calculated and intended to create a desired response. She wanted to intimidate him and set him in the right mindset for her to push him-hopefully, past his limits. Leaning her head slightly toward each shoulder, she stared at him coolly. When she stopped, she was more than fifteen feet away. Joker had been right; she wasn't planning on laying a hand on Alenko, which, strangely, wasn't a comforting thought. Her actions were measured, as were his reactions to them. And it quickly became clear to him that this was more than an exercise, it was an assessment. He tried to take her intimidation in stride.

"You've got this L-T," McMillan offered in support. His sentiment was soon echoed by the rest of the team.

Shepard touched her chest and glanced at her crew. "Ouch. No love." Her tone mocked hurt, but her smile was genuine and their reaction seemed to please her. She turned her gaze back to Kaidan. "Whenever you're ready, Mr. Alenko."

He nodded. Kaidan felt the slight tightness of the stasis creep up his legs before he could even decide if he wanted to attack first.  _Damn, she's fast_. He hadn't even seen the movement that set it. He broke the stasis as quickly as she'd placed it.  _And that was weak. No, it was a trick. Just to play with you, to get into your head._  He watched her for a moment, uncertain. He didn't want to take the first shot, he assumed from his late night research that she'd be more comfortable reacting to his attacks and didn't want to play into her strengths.

The smirk suggested she might know where his mind was at. Shepard tugged him, setting him off balance just before she threw him; it worked to offset him, which had been the intent, but he came back up quickly and pulled her into the air. It was short-lived; she grounded herself quickly before pairing a movement with her left hand with a forceful motion leading with the heel of her right palm. He righted himself from the pull as the blue skipped across the mat toward him and his dodge was late.

_Goddamn, she's pushing. And now I'm the one left reacting._ She was proving more offensive than he had anticipated. Everything in her file spoke of using other tactics before her biotics; her ease with this display distracted him from everything he thought he knew about her methods.

Kaidan pulled up his barrier to fend off her next strike.  _What am I doing? Going head to head biotically with someone this powerful. Hell with this! She wants us to stop pulling punches, then let's pull out all the stops_. His omnitool lit to life as he sent an electronic burst her way. She dove, but it tracked her.  _Now she's reacting._  He pulled her into the air. The barrier pulled her back down, and she sent the controlled orb of energy at him, and then tossed him again.

The exchange continued for a several more minutes. Part of him knew she wasn't going full out, but she moved so quickly and fluidly that he had trouble thinking anything out too thoroughly. Despite his desire not to be, he was merely responding to her barrage with barely any time to think things out. After getting thrown off kilter by another shockwave he righted himself in time to pair a warp with a watered-down cryoblast. He lost track of her for a moment, until she was in front of him in a burst of energy that pushed him backward. He bounced off the thickly padded wall a few feet behind him.

Chakwas had been on her feet the entire time, inching toward the mat the longer it went on, but when she saw Shepard charge the move she'd stepped onto the mat. "I'm calling it," the doctor yelled.

It came half a second too late. Kaidan had decided on a response and lunged at the commander with a glowing fist, which connected with the distracted woman's jaw. He'd reacted as he'd been doing almost the entire fight, and once his head caught up with the rest of him, he regretted it.

Everyone in the room froze and stared at the two officers. The lieutenant stumbled back a step as the barrier shimmered off the commander's lithe form. Kaidan looked up at her, expecting to be laid out, thinking he deserved it.

Shepard's laugh broke the stunned silence. The sound was playful, but the busted lip and blood on her teeth made it look maniacal. "About damn time somebody threw a real punch. Toss me a towel, Crosby," she ordered as the silent and wide-eyed corporal complied, still staring at her as she ran her tongue along the inside of her mouth.

"You good, Alenko?" she asked, offering him her hand. He shook it and her nod assured him there were no hard feelings.

He was a little winded from the hit, but that wasn't really a surprise. He couldn't help but stare at her, and deep down he couldn't help but think that was precisely the outcome she'd been looking for, or something like it. He'd expected to be laid out for the reaction, but she just seemed delighted about the whole thing, though he felt a bit like an ass.

Now that the main event had concluded most of the crewmen, including the captain and Nihlus had vacated the cramped space and left the medics and the ground team to the rest of their training for the day. While the whispers went unheard, the glances cast in Alenko's direction didn't go unnoticed. Most of them seemed shocked. He wasn't sure if they were surprised that he survived, that he'd punch Shepard, or that she hadn't killed him for it. In the end he knew it didn't really matter at all.

"Nice hit by the way. You play rugby much?" Kaidan joked as he leaned against the wall at the doctor's insistence.

"Nah. Not my game," she replied crossing the room and hopping onto the table the team was sitting on. "But had this mean asari vanguard as a tutor, who thought every biotic needed to know how to charge."

She straightened up slightly and with a mocking and superior tone offered her best impression. "The psychological power involved with instantly appearing in your opponent's personal space and thrusting them backward using their own power against them is immeasurable." She touched the towel to her mouth again. "Comes in handy from time to time."

Kaidan laughed as he approached the table. "Well, she was right. Threw me off-completely."

"That was the whole point." She looked up at him and her eyes seemed to confirm what he'd started thinking. Shepard had been pushing him hard and fast to get him to let loose, to open up on her. And he'd played right into it.

 

**ii.**

* * *

The commander had gotten precisely what she wanted out of the match. She knew he hadn't gone all out, at least until the punch, but then she hadn't either. She really wanted to see how he would handle the situation. Would he back down or step up? And he'd more than stepped up; he'd jumped up, which she was satisfied with. But she still wanted to know what level of biotic intensity she was working with, and it looked like she wouldn't find that out until they were actually in the field.

Dabbing at her at her lip to stem the rather free flow of blood, Shepard glanced around at the faces on her team. They were not intimidated by what had happened. They seemed to grasp the lesson she was aiming to teach.

When the doctor turned her attention from the lieutenant to the commander, Shepard held up a hand. The familiar metallic taste of her own blood spread was still fresh on her tongue, but she didn't need medical attention. "It's a fat lip, which I deserve for not paying attention. I'm fine."

The doctor muttered something and her scowl intensified.

"Oh yeah, encourage me to give you something to do," the commander replied with a playfully challenging tone then looked at Crosby, who flinched a little. She knew she was going to have to find a way to get him more comfortable around biotics, or maybe he just wasn't comfortable around  _her_. "All right, I think it's time for show and tell. Lieutenant, you're on."

Alenko laughed when the team followed her gaze and stared blankly at him. "Who's feeling adventurous?"

Shepard wasn't surprised Niveda volunteered first. The commander remained at her perch to watch the rest of the show with Dr. Chakwas standing next to her. "That was not the smartest choice, Commander. Two biotics duking it out.  _On the ship_."

"I cleared it with Engineering first, and I warned him. Not like I sprung it on him." She glanced in the direction of the woman whose face suggested she clearly did not believe the commander. "And I needed to know what to expect out of him. I'd like to have seen how he'd react after the charge, but someone's overdeveloped maternal instinct stopped it short," she added with a little laugh to show she was just teasing the medical officer.

"Someone else could have been hurt. Or one of you two."

"One of us did get hurt." She smiled, which added a sharp sting to the little throb in her lip. "But he's still holding back," Nyx disclosed, watching the lieutenant fling recruits into the air with a very controlled pull. "He's got to open up a little more; there's more power there. I can tell."

A few times she'd felt ripples of it in the abilities, there seemed to be waves in the power amplitude, which suggested to her there was more there. She knew that had both muted their amps, even if she'd gone all out she wouldn't have been able to kill him if she wanted to with her biotics, though a concussion could have been likely. But even with the headjacks tuned to training parameters, he was manipulating the size and power of his skills.

Nyx looked over at Chakwas whose face bore a look of consternation. "What? He should be spiking higher. According to the captain, he's one of the most powerful and skilled biotics in the service, even though he's holding back. If he opened up," Shepard said, shaking her head as she shifted off the table and crossed the room. Nyx grabbed a small bottle of orange juice out of the refrigeration unit near the door.

"You wanted him to go all out?"

"Of course. That was the point of that little exercise."

"You didn't," Chakwas rightly accused, crossing her arms over her chest. Shepard eyed the  _Normandy's_  medical officer. "If you had, he'd be in my med bay after that little charge-discharge display. Or have you forgotten that I've seen you in action, Commander? I've seen you kill a man with that same move."

Shepard leaned closer, her eyes locked on those of the older woman. "I wasn't out to injure him, just see what I'm working with. And hopefully discourage him from holding back. But even with everything I threw at him, he was still measuring everything. He never opened up, even with his tech, though that seemed a little freer than his biotics. I don't have time for them to play nice. I have limited time and resources to turn these people into a team I can take into the field."

Chakwas nodded, the look on her face suggested that the doctor finally realized precisely what the commander was driving at.

Shepard leaned back and her face lost the traces of concern. "I know Anderson handpicked them. But these people can only be described as inexperienced, even if they have incredible potential. I have to prepare them. They have to be ready for anything, and right now they are not." Shepard looked at the doctor and revealed, "I'm trying…"

"I understand." Chakwas smiled and set a comforting hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "Let's get something on that lip," she ordered as she crossed back to the table Shepard had vacated.

Shepard stared at the wall and took a long pull on her juice. She didn't think anyone noticed it. She hadn't held back on much else. But that move she knew could put an armored man in the hospital, even with safety considerations in place. She wasn't willing to take any chances. Team building usually fell apart when you put a member of that team in traction. She rubbed her tongue along her lip again _. Stop doing that or you'll make it worse_. The voice in her head was her father's, not her own, and it made her chuckle to herself as she crossed to the doctor.

In her discussions with Anderson, he had mentioned that she would still find herself on the ground, thus the need for this team. Her concern was that someone wouldn't be ready. And it was her job to make sure they were. The lieutenant commander took a deep breath and turned back to the display. The team actually seemed like they were enjoying themselves. But then in her experience her old squad had always liked the no-holds-barred sparring matches too, especially if someone had gotten mouthy enough to call the commander out on "that fancy blue brain shit," as one overzealous ensign had termed it.

Tension flared up after things became a little too relaxed. Everyone froze when Jenkins hit the ground, hard. They stared, but no one moved. Chakwas pushed one of her corpsmen out of the way as she moved toward the mat, and Alenko blanched. Then the corporal popped up, hands triumphantly above his head. "That was AWESOME!" The gym filled with laughter.

Shepard crossed the mat with a relieved smile and clapped the corporal on the shoulder. "All right. Let's call it, people. Get out of here. Go on, out of my PT area." She listened to the sound of the retreating stampede as she made notes on her omnitool.

"Hey!" There was enough of a pause for her to turn toward Alenko before he tossed something in her direction. "Catch!"

She grabbed the bottle flying at her. "Thanks." She finished up her notes then closed her omnitool and looked over at him.

"So, if that little show was all about getting them to stop holding back, why am I not in the medical?" He raised the water bottle to his lips and stared at her with a trace of a satisfied grin on his lips.

Shepard smiled and nodded. The main point of the displays had been show and tell, essentially. The squad now had direct experience with the arsenal the two officers were working with. But that wasn't the only reason. She'd only rarely worked with biotics; she too wanted to know who and what she was working with, just as much as she wanted the rest of them to know it. And while Alenko wasn't the first biotic she'd worked with, he was the first she'd placed in a position of sparring with her.

"Because that wasn't the only goal." She took a drink as he nodded. He was still staring at her, waiting. "And now they've seen what I'm capable of. They've experienced what you're capable of. We are no longer an unknown quantity in their minds." Another nod. He didn't seem satisfied yet. "What? Do you want a do-over?"

"No, thanks," he relented, holding up his hands and chuckling. "My neck's probably going to be sore for a day, or so, as it is." He rubbed at the top of his shoulder for a moment, rather unconvincingly.

"Whatever you say, L-T," Shepard replied with a smile. "Which reminds me. Nice punch." She set the bottle down and leaned her hands against the table between them for a minute before she found the best way to ask. She opted for the most diplomatic approach she could muster. "You are very controlled in the use of your biotics, but freer with your tech. But you were holding back in both departments. What gives?"

He looked at her curiously. "I'm not sure what you mean?" His gaze dropped to the water bottle for a second.

She could see that he did, but she wasn't going to push it yet. He didn't really trust her yet, as an officer or as a teammate, so she wouldn't harp on it. She just wanted him to know she was aware of it. "Don't get me wrong. You seem to have great precision and you can pack a punch, but there seems to be almost too much control in the amplitude of your maneuvers."

He nodded slowly as he looked at his water. "Hmm. Don't think I've ever heard it put like that before. I'll look into it, Commander."

"Sure thing," she replied, straightening. "Thanks for the water, Lieutenant." Shepard slapped him on the shoulder and left him standing there in the empty gym. She wouldn't bring it up again, but at least he was thinking about it, which was what she wanted.

"Anytime, Commander," he answered.

 

**iii.**

* * *

Kaidan thought he'd imagined it, the hitch in her step when he'd replied. He hadn't intended to repeat the last thing he'd said to her the night they met, but her reaction told him he wasn't the only one that still remembered it, in his case, too vividly. It made him wonder if he wasn't the only one having trouble putting it out of his mind, as well. But part of him knew it didn't matter.

He'd made the decision long before he even got the assignment that his career came first. And this position was one he didn't intend to lose because he started thinking with the wrong head. He watched her walk out of the room, wondering if his response had been the right one. He measured all his exchanges with Shepard differently than he might have if not for that chance meeting; part of him wondered if it was really necessary.

When they were working with the squad, things seemed totally on the mark, but there were other times when things seemed to be more difficult. He looked up at the ceiling and drank his water, not moving for a long time.

Joker's voice echoed in his throbbing skull. "All right, stop basking in your survival and get your ass up here. The heat transfer rate is fluctuating erratically again. We're going to have to recalibrate it for the third time this week."

"Give me ten?"

"Sure thing. Not like we're under the bubble right now anyway."

The lieutenant slipped out of the area and up to the crew deck. As he stepped out of the elevator, he bumped headlong into Shepard-piercing blue eyes blinking up at him, wet hair down, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, arms filled. It was like that first night all over again for a moment, he couldn't move or breathe. Then the fog cleared and they both shuffled in step a few times before they stopped, calculating a solution that would end the little dance. Kaidan grabbed her upper arms and held her still for a moment then sidestepped her and ducked into the corridor that lead to the male officer's quarters.

He slipped into the room he shared with the other male officers and leaned against the wall just inside the door when he found the room empty. His mind raced. Some moments it was all so crystal clear and under control, then the next it was all up in the air again. He could feel his pulse racing, blood thudding through his veins. "Get a grip, Alenko," he told himself as he crossed to his bunk and dug out his shower kit and a clean uniform.

 

**iv.**

* * *

The lieutenant commander sat on the edge of her bunk buttoning her blouse as she chastised herself. She'd thought the balance was shifting; they worked well together and when they were working, things seemed fine, perfectly normal. It was in those other places, when things weren't clearly professional; those were the places where it was harder. She sighed as she stood and swiped her blouse into her BDUs.

When she stepped in front of the mirror to pull her hair up, a thought trailed through her mind.  _Not sure I'll ever be quite used to Fleet Blue_. A part of her missed what her guys called the N-black (her black BDUs that bore her N7 tab), but she was fleet now and she needed to portray it. Shepard just had to be glad that Anderson didn't expect her to follow Pressly's lead or his own on the uniform of the day. Bridge officers were supposed to wear their dress uniforms, but the captain knew that might make her rebel eventually and had given her a reprieve, so her uniform of the day corresponded to the other working officers of the crew.

Her hair was naturally long and straight, though her preference for wearing it up usually left a little hint of a wave in her hair whenever she did let it down, which was extremely rare. Unless she was just out of the shower, then it was stick straight as usual. She put it up quickly and finally ducked out of the female officers' quarters, crossing the crew deck quickly before she stopped at her CO's door.

Surprisingly, the hatch slid open when she keyed the panel. "Captain," she called sharply as she entered and stood just inside the doorway.

 

**v.**

* * *

"Have a seat, Shepard." He joined her at the table in the center of the room. "Interesting display downstairs."

She tipped her head and made noncommittal face. "It could have gone a little better."

When she'd brought the idea up to him, he'd been skeptical. He had used similar techniques in his own crews. Sometimes you could kill two birds with one stone, get people to trust you as well as test their limits in one fell swoop. And he knew her goals were along that line, as well as just a little farther. Being a biotic hadn't been easy for her. The revelation had been a little traumatic.

She'd gone for a physical with her mother on Arcturus Station, and the doctor there was more thorough than most could be on ships. Ship doctors didn't think to test someone for signs of biotic potential. And when the doctor told them, Nyx had rebelled against it, fought her parents and the doctors every step of the way. When she'd been implanted she shut down on all of them, even him. And that was a role Anderson had always held-confidante-when her parents pissed her off, when her friends were out of contact, she'd always turned to David, but in that moment she had been lost to all of them.

Eventually she found a way through it with the help of a retired asari, who'd spent time as a commando in their armed forces. Shepard had told him years later that she didn't even know what it meant to be a biotic, and that even in the service, where biotics were more common than elsewhere, they were still misunderstood and feared.

The sparring match had been about pushing the lieutenant as much as about showing her team, maybe even the crew, that biotics was just one more weapon. And though they might not understand it, per se, they would at least see it and know what was happening around them when either Shepard or Alenko used biotic abilities in combat.

"I told you not to inform Chakwas," Anderson noted. "She is very protective of her crew. Like the rest of us."

"I only asked for a corpsman," Shepard shrugged. "When I wouldn't tell her why, she insisted."

He laughed as he leaned back in the chair. "So, did you get what you needed?"

"No, he was holding back."

"That punch was not holding back," the captain said.

She smiled. "No, it wasn't. But that was the only time he let loose. Even the tech was weak. And reading his record, he's marks and scores are stellar. He never stopped looking at it like an exercise." Her fingertips tapped in an odd rhythm on the tabletop. "His control is remarkable. I was pushing him hard, but I did get him to stop thinking, eventually. Toward the end, he was just reacting." She stared at her fingertips, she was mulling over something.

"Damnit!" she blurted finally, standing and kicking the chair back.

Anderson didn't say anything. He knew what was coming and had seen it building, so he waited.

"Why didn't Command give me any time on the ground with these people?" She stared at him for a moment before she set her hands on her hips and paced in a precise straight line. "Two weeks. I could have done it in two weeks. Got in some range time, assessed their marksmanship. PT'd the hell out of them then run them through a few kill houses, maybe even a full scenario if I could have pulled a tango team."

When she stopped, he stood. "I know. And that had been in the original timetable," he said as he crossed to her and set his hands on her shoulder.

"Then why accelerate?"

"Wasn't our call."

"Who?"

"The Council," he admitted.

Anderson knew she was aware of the Council's interest in the  _Normandy_. He also knew that she didn't have the full story as to why they were interested in the vessel. As much as he wished he could tell her everything that was going on, he was still under orders, the information was still need-to-know, and Shepard's name still wasn't on that guest list.

"They called Hackett, said it had to be now. The admiral was not going to put this ship out without the XO he wanted on the boat. So your timetable got slashed."

"Fucking politics." She sighed. "I just hope none of these guys pays the price for their impatience."

"These marines are up to the challenge. You know I wouldn't bring in people who weren't."

"I know." She looked up at him before she slipped out of his hands and wandered around the room."But they are green as hell, except McMillan and Crosby. And even their experience is incredibly limited. Jenkins and Niveda have next to no time in the field. The only one I'd feel comfortable taking into the field right now is Alenko."

"Why's that?"

Shepard raised her eyebrows at him in surprise. "Did you read his fit reps from Expeditionary?"

He looked at her like she'd lost her mind, or at least forgotten who she was talking to, and she chuckled lightly response. Major Fowler was the commanding officer of the 103rd Marine Expeditionary Unit, and he had a reputation for not liking anyone and writing the most honest reports about operations and his people.

Shepard leaned against the wall. "We both know Fowler. That man's more hard ass than both of us combined. The recs he wrote Alenko were beyond anything I've heard from him before. Hell, add that to the salarians' requests after the first time he worked with them. They've practically begged Command to send him back, twice."

"I've seen a few turian letters like that," Anderson noted with a sideways glance at her. She pursed her lips impatiently and glared at him for changing the subject unbidden; he couldn't help but laugh. "You're telling me like I don't already know."

"No. It's just …" Her eyes searched his for a moment, like she was searching for the answer to whatever question she was trying to work out. "He's talented."

"The team looks up to him. Probably more so now." He couldn't help but laugh. "I mean come on. Got charged by Commander Shepard then decked the same. Boy's going to get some mileage off of that."

Shepard disagreed and her body language showed it. "He's a good officer. Talented engineer and a powerful biotic. That's what he'll get his mileage off of."

"With you. With me. Yeah, that's what it comes down to. But with the men, he'll be the biotic that busted Shepard's lip and lived to tell about it. Though I doubt he'll be the one telling that story," Anderson noted.

"Yeah, best to leave that to Joker," she quipped.

Anderson was well aware that the helmsman was one of the best sources of intelligence on the ship, at least as far as rumors, conjecture, and stories people didn't always want told were concerned. But he wanted to go back to something she'd hinted at earlier. He needed to know her thoughts about the marine detail and their readiness. He knew what was coming, and he knew these marines would be pushed harder than they had before. The Alliance brass had planned on a training period, but when that didn't happen some questions had been raised by the brass and in his own mind.

"Are you worried about the abilities of any of the detail?"

Shepard propped her foot up on the wall behind her, then looked at the ceiling for a moment, trying to find the precise words she wanted. It was something that she'd always done in some situations. Mostly, she said what she felt but there were times when that wasn't always prudent, and in many of those she was careful in her words choice.

"No, not as such. They are combat ready. They work well together. They just …"

"Aren't your old team?" He understood where she was at.

The commander shook her head. "It's not that. No, they aren't A-Seven, and I don't expect them to be. But they haven't even run a combat exercise together. And we both know that anything can and does happen out there. I just want them to be ready. And I'm not completely sure they are."

"Why?"

"They don't trust me. They don't know me." She shrugged and ran her palms lightly over her thighs then looked over at him. "They still think I'm  _the_  Commander Shepard, they aren't seeing me as their squad leader."

"It'll happen. It always does with you. But it's going to take a little while for them to see that you're just like them." He crossed to her and touched her shoulder lightly. "Trust has to be earned, we both know that. Until they trust you, until they see the grunt under the medals, they'll do what we all do in the beginning: follow orders and get it done."

The notoriety was tough for Shepard, mainly because he knew she saw herself the way her soldiers saw themselves. She was an operator-give her a mission and the tools and she would get it done.  _Hell, half of the time she'd give you a goddamn masterpiece_. Because that was what she did, and she tended to do it with more consistency than anyone else, and in some pretty bad places; her name was known far beyond her limited circle of friends and associates because of it.

"I know. I just wish I had the time to prepare them better for whatever were going to be doing with this prototype stealth vessel," she said, her tone changing from serious to somewhat playful. She raised her eyebrows at him. "Speaking of which?"

"No. Nothing has come through yet. Command is following the Council's lead right now," he responded, leaning against the wall so she couldn't read the half-truth in his eyes. The Alliance brass did have them in a holding pattern, but only because they were waiting for word that the device was ready for pick up. The excavation was not going as well as planned, so what was supposed to happen three days prior, was still close to a week out.


	4. Shakedown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy's shakedown takes a turn for the unexpected, at least for Shepard and the crew, until she learns that that she was not on the list of those with need to know about the purpose and mission of the Normandy. When the mission takes a surprising turn, she, Alenko, and Jenkins must prepare quickly for a situation they know little about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acknowledgements: I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers-xforeverquotex and my paramour. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece.

FWN: 04 The Shakedown

 

i.

The Normandy's turian guest had most people's hackles up. He was dogged and deliberate, and that was putting it delicately. Most of the time he reminded Commander Shepard a lot of Captain Braxus, the turian team leader she'd served under during a training exchange with a turian SpecOps unit. Then there were other times when Nihlus reminded her of the comparatively affable Hierarchy liaison she considered her friend, Marric Toran. The Spectre didn't seem uncomfortable around the human crew, though Shepard was certain that he was more than aware of the discomfort they felt in his presence.

The concern over the turian's presence on the ship surprised Shepard a little. She knew that for most many there was no love lost between turians and humans since the First Contact War. There were some on both sides that still distrusted one another and a lot of bad blood existed between the militaries of both species. Despite multiple attempts by factions in the Alliance and the Hierarchy to alleviate some of the distrust and incorrect assumption, animosity still existed. The training exercises and exchanges that had been happening for years were slowly changing the experiences and opinions of some soldiers, but not all, older soldiers who had actually served during the three-month long the Relay 314 Incident, as the turians called it, still held tight to old opinions and grudges.

Adding to the effect he had on the crew was myth and legend that seemed to surround Council Spectres. For humans Spectre operatives were relatively unknown, most humans knew only what was portrayed in the popular media. One common point of knowledge humanity had learned about this group, was something most of the galaxy had known for centuries-Spectres were agents with relatively free reign to maintain galactic stability. But humanity's experience with these agents was limited to the highly romanticized characterizations from fiction and media. And those representations seemed to latch onto the caveat which qualified their authority: by any means necessary. The Council gave their operatives complete operational discretion, according to all the tales, and many species saw them as above and beyond the law.

The crew's reactions to Nihlus Kryik ranged across a vast spectrum, from the xenophobic to the romantic. Pressly was concerned about the fact he was turian, a sentiment Shepard was certain that others might share. After the First Contact War, a lot of humans still held concerns about turians, but in her own experience those concerns and opinions went both ways and like most opinions of that kind were based on a lack of experience or information. On the other side of the coin, Jenkins was enamored with the idea of Nihlus-his jurisdiction and prowess as a Spectre. Shepard wasn't sure which one concerned her more, neither seemed particularly productive.

Nihlus himself just silently skulked around the decks usually observing the activity aboard the ship silently. Shepard hadn't developed an opinion about the alien, but then typically she based her perceptions on people based on their performance. Since she hadn't seen him in action, there wasn't much to go on. What she had seen of him made him seem a decent sort, if not a little detached. But one trait that was all his own was that Nihlus Kyrik seemed to be everywhere, except when someone was looking for him. She'd caught sight of him one afternoon when she was running hand-to-hand drills with Corporal Niveda, one of the soldiers in her detail. He'd been hovering in Engineering when Shepard stopped in to talk to Adams regarding a report about an inconsistency in shield outputs. When she and Alenko had their little showdown, he'd skulked near the door with the captain. Every time she turned around she ran into him it seemed, even one morning when he'd been helpful enough to fill her empty coffee mug for the first time that day.

"Appreciated, sir."

"You're welcome, Commander," he'd replied with the same calculating look he always wore.

She'd walked away from the encounter shaking her head, wondering how the hell to get a read on the guy; turians certainly didn't have the same tells as humans, though there were some vocal inflections that seemed to cross species well enough. Hell, she'd known Marric for years before she knew for certain when he was smiling and that was only because she could hear it in his voice. But that wasn't usually the case with Kryik.

 

ii.

It irritated the helmsman when people loomed. He liked having the helm to himself most of the time. He put up with the techs and Pressly's occasional appearance. The only person qualified for the position that continued to actually co-pilot during Joker's extended shifts at the helm, was Alenko, whom Moreau had known for years. The others in the crew that held that designator annoyed him, so he'd convinced them he was grouchy and cantankerous then offered them an out. Joker was not a people person in the largest sense, but he was personable enough when he wanted or had to be. But people hovering in his space was something he didn't abide. Looming drove him toward the edge or sanity and made him testy. He especially did not care for Nihlus' brand of looming.

The Spectre would just stand there all mysterious and judgey-arms crossed, leaning back just so, to give that air of turian superiority while retaining the stick up his ass. I could out fly you and your avian buddies any day, he found himself thinking more than once. As the turian stood there, silently observing again, Moreau tried to distract himself. Why the hell are you standing up here being all menacing? Aren't there some other crewmen you can harass? No one else hassles me up here, he ranted silently.

Anderson loomed from time to time, but he was mainly trying to go unnoticed for a few minutes on a ship too small to really get good lost on. Alenko never loomed, that would be unproductive-he really needs to loosen up a little. Surprisingly, Moreau didn't mind when Shepard loomed, though half the time he wasn't aware of it until he said something stupid. But then what she did, really wouldn't qualify as looming; she just sort of appeared and was there, except when she wasn't. Wonder how many times she's been there and gone without me knowing at all? The thought did not comfort him in the least. Someone really needs to get the XO some damn footsteps.

Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau liked Shepard better than most of the line officers he'd met in his career, but part of that he knew was precisely because she wasn't really a line officer. Shepard came to the line after a long career as just another grunt, one of the guys. She was a worker bee, like him, but had the stripes and the clout that made people look at her differently, as more.

When he found out she was the Executive Officer of the Normandy, he'd made a few calls to people he had worked with, trained with, or grown up with. The thing that shocked him most was they were all willing to talk, but most striking was that no one he talked to knew her personally. They'd seen her, heard lower deck rumors, maybe even piloted her teams to and from whatever planet or moon they were working on at the time. Even the few SpecOps guys he knew didn't really know her.

After a few weeks around her he realized why. Anyone who actually knew Shepard wouldn't be so quick to trade stock in rumors or gossip about her. The commander didn't so much command respect and loyalty, she earned them. She didn't see herself as deserving anything that she didn't work for. It didn't take long for Joker to warm up to her, and Shepard had made that pretty easy. Early on he'd had a few stupid slips, but she never dressed him down for it. Mostly she just joined in, easily laughing at herself and the impressions people had of her. He had even noticed that on occasion she would walk a little louder so that he would know she was coming, though that was rare.

When his chair bucked he looked up, and she was standing next to him proffering a cup of coffee. He took it without realizing that his surprise was registered on his face.

"That little purple-haired yeoman, Michaels, I think. I really need to learn her name. … Anyway she swears you're a cream and sugar guy. Hope she's right," Shepard said as she slipped into the empty co-pilot's seat. "I'm commandeering this station because I need more console space."

"Uh… okay." He tried the coffee and tried not to smile. Goddamn, she even got that right. "Why are you doing that up here?"

She shrugged noncommittally. "Why not?"

Moreau didn't buy it. "I mean the CIC has some nice console space, plus that massive display."

Shepard looked over at him and blinked a few times. "I creep them out."

He choked slightly as he inhaled some of his coffee. "Who?"

"The bridge crew." She looked back over her shoulder eying them. "They look at me like they think I'll eat them. Or gut them on the galaxy map."

"Yeah. But I'm sure it would take some major screw up to push you that far."

Another shrug. "As long as they don't mess with the coffee or my pistols they'll be fine," she said lightly as she pulled up a few reports on the console.

"Whatever. You're not as scary as you think you are."

The chuckle was light. "I'm not scary at all. I'm all sweetness and light," she intoned.

Joker looked at her incredulously. "And full of shit."

Her laugh was bright and usually betrayed her true nature. Joker liked hearing her laugh, and no one who heard the sound could resist at least smiling in response. He left her to her reports, as requirements of his own position cropped up. And the two just sat there enjoying the best view on the Normandy as they ground through sleep-inducing reports and read outs until the coffee ran out.

"You, Commander, are in my chair," Alenko noted when he reached the cockpit.

"Yes, I am Staff Lieutenant. Joker was scared of being up her all alone. He has some irrational fear that one of the marine detail is going to flay the flesh of his bones and turn him into stock."

"Have you seen some of the grub that comes out of the mess. I wouldn't put it past them," Joker agreed as she slipped out of the chair.

She stood behind his chair as Alenko took up the spot she'd relinquished. With a glance at his friend Joker noticed the unfocused stare and slight frown, after Alenko had himself settled the pilot noticed the other man rub his right hand over the top of his thigh too often.

"I'll leave you gentlemen to it, then. Pressly's probably looking for me, or will be soon," she stated as she walked up the deck silently.

"What's with you?" Joker muttered narrowing his eyes on the lieutenant.

"What?" Kaidan replied as if the pilot had interrupted his train of thought. "Sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

"Yeah. I got that." Jeff stared at him for a few moments before Alenko looked away, seemingly calmer since Shepard had left. Since Shepard left. Holy hell. "She still throws you off?"

The quick turn of Alenko's head and the sharpness of his glare was all the answer Moreau needed.

"Shit. She does, doesn't she?" Joker looked back at his console. "You know if she didn't lay you out when you punched her, she's not going to. You can stop worrying about it."

"It's not that. It's … not anything," the staff lieutenant said weakly. "Just let it go."

Joker glanced at him without turning his face from the console. "Whatever you say, man." Something had his friend riled, but Joker knew Kaidan. The biotic never just put anything out there. Hell, sometimes even if he wanted you to know something, you had to pry it out of the man.

Kaidan was a good officer, but Joker always thought he was too hard on himself. Pushing yourself is one thing, even Jeff was guilty of that. But Alenko didn't just push, he rode himself harder than any drill instructor might. Joker could also tell when it was happening some of the time, and this was one of those times-Alenko wasn't seeing the consoles in front of him at the moment, his mind was somewhere else. Probably lecturing himself about some perceived misstep or infraction that no one else could ever see or recognize.

"Hey! Have you got those new calibrations for the refractors?" Joker felt a little bad, but he knew the distraction would pull Kaidan out of whatever little self-reflection he was in.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I finished them this morning," the biotic replied quickly pulling them up and transferring the file over to the pilot for review.

As they discussed the document, Jeff knew the distraction had worked but there was no telling if it was temporary or not. Once he got his friend's mind on something else, Joker let his mind wander back to what seemed the impetus for Kaidan's disconnection in the first place. By his own admission, the lieutenant worked well with Shepard, respected her. Hell, he'd seen the security footage from the sparring match, Alenko had read her better in that fight than any of the detail had in hand to hand. She had controlled the entire thing, up until the punch, but the lieutenant had held his own and kept up with her mostly. Additionally, the commander seemed to appreciate Alenko's efforts and held a high opinion of the staff lieutenant. Why does she still throw him off?

 

iii.

One afternoon, she'd spent two hours watching over her crew's PT just because there was nothing else pressing. Alenko was taking a turn as head torture master, while Shepard leaned against the Mako sipping her second cup of coffee. He pushed the team through a grueling agility training exercise, when the shadow drew her gaze.

"Nihlus," she said not needing to look to confirm the identity.

"Shepard," he greeted as he took up a position beside her, though he did not lean. "Your unit has surprising cohesion for one with no field experience together. You seem quite skilled at uniting people and encouraging unit coordination."

"Thank you," she replied. "I'm sure my methods are soft compared to yours."

"Incredibly likely. But they still seem adequately successful."

She knew it to be a compliment and opted to ignore both the comment which could be perceived as a slight and the insinuation that human training methods were lacking. She knew first hand they weren't terribly different from turian physical training regimens. The commander glanced over again and he was looking at her. He was standing, practically at attention, or it would have been attention if he was a human. That might just be how all turians stand, she thought, remembering her time with Braxus' unit.

"How much experience have you had with other species?" he asked still studying her.

She stood and faced him, craning her neck to look him in the eyes he had a little over a foot-and-a-half on her in height. "Enough. I know where to aim for maximum results," she replied coolly, resisting the urge to tap her temple for emphasis, though that wasn't the optimal site for taking down a krogan. "I've spent time with a turian unit, worked with the asari, and with salarian operations once. My training with them all was quite enlightening."

He laughed, it was a creepier and a more disconcerting sound than she'd expected. "Any hand-to-hand contact with Braxus's team?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him and how well informed he was. "The brass wouldn't allow it," she disclosed, sidestepping the question. He narrowed his eyes at her and she smiled slightly. Already knew the answer to that one I see. "I've done a few melee take downs, but I know the limits of my skill. I try to keep them at more than arm's length if I can. I don't think I'll be throwing punches with any krogan or turians, by choice."

He nodded, and set his claws against his chin for a moment. "I wouldn't bet on you against a krogan. But I think you could hold your own against a turian."

Her breath hitched in her throat. Did he just challenge me? Surely not.

He was nodding at her.

Son of bitch, he did. "What gives you that impression?" she asked, swallowing her surprise.

"In watching your team's training, I've assessed your abilities. You are very fluid. Stronger than I expected, which paired with your speed and flexibility could prove lethal. You adhere to your own style while reading and adapting to your opponent. Yet I find that you are a little too reliant on brute force for a biotic of your skill and power. Your demonstration with the lieutenant showed that you are quite versatile in that arena, but from what I've read you don't rely on your biotics as much as one of your skill normally might, and probably should."

Shepard was surprised to hear that comment from a turian. In her experience they were a little conservative with biotics, even more so than humans. In fact, turians tended to corral their biotics in small units, keeping them separate from one another as well as from the other troops. Unintentionally, she'd betrayed a hint of surprise at the mention that he'd been observing the training of the marine detail; she'd noticed his observation a few times, but obviously not all of it.

"It is that reliance on martial prowess that will keep your opponent on their toes." He clasped his hands loosely in front of him. "In that way you are like a volus or a salarian, most would not expect one of your size and build to handle themselves quite so expertly in a physical confrontation. You have surprising range. Marksman. Biotic with striking power and versatility, though you do not depend on it. Extensive melee training. And your knife skills are quite impressive, from what I've read and heard. Very wise move—diversifying, not depending on any one ability."

"The consideration is appreciated," she said carefully. "But I'll be honest the idea of hand-to-hand combat, or even knife combat, with a turian is not a comforting thought."

Nihlus nodded. "It really is a matter of knowing where to strike and making adjustments for your opponent's increased reach. But you seem to have no problem accommodating for your…" His eyes moved up and down her frame once before decided how to word it. "Build."

Shepard chuckled at the care and precision he had taken in an effort not to offend her.

"You held your own against your male counterparts here in exercises."

She stared at him with rapt attention, ignoring the comment on her height because it wasn't meant merely a neutral observation.

"With an unarmored target, you will want to strike the side of the mid-torso." He gestured to the side of his torso where it seemed to slim toward his thin waist. She nodded involuntarily as she watched the hand's movement carefully. "In armor, however, your striking points are much more limited. In that respect, you would strike just as you would a human."

"Go for the jugular," she muttered, thinking out loud.

"Well that region, yes." He lifted his head to the side and she noticed a long thin scar that ran under his left mandible. His finger moved past it. "Softest point is here-for a knife strike but you have very little leeway, about a half-an-inch, either way, and you can still get the job done. Otherwise you'll just hit bone, very sturdy bone." Then his hand moved a down, toward the outside of his neck, and a few inches below his mandible. "But a quick strike here can stun. It won't give you much time, just a few seconds at most to try and gain your advantage."

"Sometimes a few seconds is all you need," she responded rather more menacingly than she intended.

"Precisely, Commander." The timbre of his voice matched hers ominously.

She couldn't help the wicked smirk she felt play across her lips before she realized she was on her tiptoes still staring at the turian's jaw studying the obvious skin-like texture of his neck. Turian skin was thicker than that of humans but it was only found on the 'softer' parts of the body. Their plates weren't like those of krogan which were thick and protective. Turian plates were just like thicker calloused patches of leathery skin, they protected from the atmosphere of their homeworld, but not much else. Regardless, Shepard had learned enough to know that with this avian-like species preparation and distance were just as key as with krogans. One advantage in fighting a turian over a krogan, turians tended not to charge their enemies in random and unpredictable bouts of rage. But if you were smart and careful you could out think a turian, or get him to out think himself.

"Bare-handed, you likely would not kill a turian. If you draw your blade"-he glanced at her boot-"be sure to put more behind the thrust. As with most other species, you'll want to stab not slice."

"Good to know," she said then looked up at him curiously. "What's with the turian anatomy lesson?"

"Spectre. Commander. Captain Anderson needs to see you two in his quarters, a-sap," the pilot's voice rang through the cargo area.

She grimaced wanting to continue her conversation with the Spectre. "On my way," they replied in unison.

She looked at him with a quick nod, "Appreciate the lesson."

"We can talk krogan another day," he promised with a light playfulness in his tone, or at least that was how she heard it, as they crossed to the elevator at a jog.

Shepard nodded. "That's a lesson I'd definitely hate to miss. Got my bell rung by one a few years back. Learned to keep my distance from them."

"Smart choice. That's my preference as well."

The commander grinned.

Much to Shepard's displeasure the lesson on krogan anatomy would have to wait. As they exited onto the crew deck, they ran into Anderson who gave her a quick look when the pair stepped off the elevator together. He had been rushing down the stairs from the CIC, and tossed a datapad to her.

"Read fast," he told her as he and Nihlus headed into his quarters.

They hadn't had time for a ground drop since they left Arcturus, but she had assumed that might come after the ship had put in some flight time. After all, they'd just barely driven the Normandy off the lot; they were still ironing out some of the kinks. Shepard stalked over to the area of the ship she had pretty much claimed as her unofficial office, and hideout. The observation deck was one of the quietest places on the ship and almost no one bothered her there. Almost. A few people had learned that when she wasn't on deck or in the gym, they could find her in what a lot of the crew termed the Obs.

The file was the kind she hated-just the bare minimum of information. Destination: Eden Prime. Mission: Priority Recovery. There was a short section on the planet and its settlements. But there was almost no information she would need to form an adequate plan, or any type of plan. No mention of possible resistance, no mention of friendly military assets or their place in her assignment. Even the actuation target location was missing, as was any description or hint of what they were after. For all she knew this was a scavenger hunt for a micro-chipped pyjak. The lack of information in the briefing just frustrated her.

She had laid down the datapad and was about to open her omnitool to do a little research of her own when a chime preceded the voice that lit it up. "Commander, we're about to hit the relay," Joker stated.

"Thank you Lieutenant." She'd previously dropped a quick message to Moreau asking him to let her know when they were headed out.

She closed out the datapad with the little bit of information she'd been given and hurried up to the bridge. The turian Spectre had beat her there and was watching the approach, standing behind the pilot as stoically as ever. Shepard nodded at him slightly as she stopped at his side. She just stared out at the deep, the relay glowing in the distance as if beckoning them to the promise of something new, something undiscovered, something beyond what they currently knew, or at least that was how Shepard viewed jumps, still. She knew her notions about space tended toward the romantic, but even after years of jumps and spending her entire life in space, she was still drawn to it all-soothed by the stars, lulled by the faint vibrations of the engines, and excited by the possibilities and the dangers inherent in any relay jump.

Joker's voice filled the ship as he detailed the event for the crew-the first jumps were always nerve wracking on a new ship. The feeling still got to her-the lurch in her gut, a sudden rush followed by another flip of the stomach before everything righted again. It was less noticeable when one was standing still, which was why the jumps were always announced. When you were moving the effect was profound, light years in a step. She'd seen people pass out from the difference in the sensation. Living and working on a ship one learned quickly if you are among the crewmen that you need to stand still. Shepard was a little odd. She liked the difference in the sensation between standing and moving: the twinge of lightheadedness, the blur or flash in your field of vision, and the adrenaline rush that always seemed to accompany it for her.

After the jump, Joker detailed the results for the ship's log, and Nihlus acknowledged his successful performance. Shepard nodded at the turian again as he turned and walked aft. The pilot was not impressed. The commander just stood back and listened as the two lieutenants discussed the Spectre, his careful praise, and the pilot's speculations about his presence. In the few weeks since they left port, both seemed to have adjusted to the XO, mostly, as had most of the ship.

Anderson had told her that she'd fit in rather easily and that the crew would warm up to her. Initially, she'd felt a little like a circus freak; crewmen staring at her, seeing her as an 'outsider'rather than as one of them. As much as she hated to admit it, there was a part of her that was fairly certain that some of the shift was due to the fact that the staff lieutenant had gotten the drop on her. It made the crew realize she was human-even the pilot and her squad mate.

"Having a Spectre on board is trouble. Call me paranoid," Joker opined.

"You're paranoid," Alenko replied.

The commander couldn't help but chuckle at the lieutenants. Joker was being overly suspicious, but Shepard agreed with him on some level. There was no way that this ship, with a Spectre aboard was just cruising to Eden Prime to check out the sights. Her mission brief had been a joke. Ground-side reconnaissance on a well-established colony with priority on removal of some undisclosed object. That was not an assignment the brass would send her on typically. Unless said object was actually an asset in some sort of danger, but even then the language in the briefing would have delineated the target as human. She knew it how it sounded. Even in her own head it sounded egotistical. But it was still the truth.

In a conversation after they put out, Navigator Pressly had confided that he felt something was a bit askew. "You don't send soldiers like that on do-nothing missions," he'd said about Captain Anderson. She knew he was right, of course, but Shepard fell into the same category. Command didn't send her anywhere just to take a look around and pick up some politician's new tea set.

There was something more going on. Shepard had been around the block. She knew her job and there was something off, she could feel it in her marrow. What got to her more than that knowledge was the fact that she knew her CO was holding out on her; her friend was letting her twist in the wind. But deep down Shepard knew it wasn't by choice. Need-to-know can be a bitch, and if Anderson hadn't brought her into the fold yet then it meant she was still outside that line by the orders of someone higher up the food chain.

"Tell Shepard to meet me in the Comms," Anderson barked at the pilot.

"You get that, Commander?" Joker asked merely out of protocol. They both knew she'd heard it.

"Yeah, I got it. Try to keep his paranoia in check," she suggested to Alenko, gesturing at the pilot.

"I think that might be a lost cause, Commander," the biotic replied, grinning at his friend who was eying him.

"True, but give it a go."

"I'll see what I can do about it, Shepard."

Strutting up the bridge, Shepard couldn't help but hope that they were close enough to the objective that she could finally get a full briefing.

 

iv.

Nihlus Kryik aimed for intimidating and rarely wavered from it. When the commander stepped into the Communications Room, he was standing before the vid screen eyeing an image of a fairly idyllic-looking planet. The rolling green hills suggested a peaceful and serene locale, but seeing the outline of the stoic turian on the image inspired a pause. He turned slightly at the waist, glancing over his shoulder at her. How am I not surprised?

"Ah. Commander Shepard, I was hoping you would arrive first. It will give us a chance to talk," Nihlus told the image.

Their conversation began like most of the one's she'd had with the turian, a seemingly random question that was meant to lead to a specific place. When he turned and faced her, feet shoulders' width apart and hands clasped behind his back, which was ramrod straight, Shepard mirrored his stance. The scrutinizing gaze was back and his bright eyes moved over her in the same calculating way they had the first time they'd met. This too she copied, again. According to her friend Marric Toran, it was the correct response to this type of confrontation. Even if she hadn't known that for certain, her response would have been the same.

Despite moments of cordiality with the Spectre, Shepard wouldn't even really call him an acquaintance, though she thought the title Spectre apt, since he tended to haunt the ship and her-materializing at will, spooking people, then fading back into the shadows.

"About?" she asked finally.

"Eden Prime. What can you tell me about it?"

Shepard felt lucky that Jenkins talked a lot, when he was nervous, or bored, or awake. She knew more about the planet because of it, since the briefing had been blank and her own research cut short. Besides what the corporal divulged, she knew the bare minimum she needed to get through her galactic geography class in school. The garden world was one of the earliest human colonies, peaceful, serene. She'd never been there or been sent there before now.

"It's kind of a symbol for your people, isn't it? Proof that humanity can establish colonies across the galaxy, but also protect them. But how safe is it really?"

Adept at reading between the lines, Shepard's eyes narrowed. She knew it wasn't a threat, nor was the statement innocuous. And it wasn't about Eden Prime. This was about something larger and that realization made Shepard consider her reply carefully. She finally opted for a silent stare. He didn't really want or need an answer, she knew.

"You're people are still newcomers Shepard. The galaxy can be a very dangerous place. Is the Alliance truly ready for this?

And here it is, Shepard thought, the more that had Joker paranoid and Pressly on edge. She wasn't sure precisely what it was, but the revelation was momentarily interrupted by the captain's arrival. She'd had been given the previous few weeks to acclimate to the new assignment. The Normandy had been dashing about checking and triple checking all the systems, which she could feel were about to be put to a real test finally.

Nihlus' approach from the moment she walked in the room had set Shepard in a defensive position, prepared her for some substantial revelation. But there was nothing she could have done to prepare for what came next.

The statements seemed to swirl into a choking mist that clogged her brain. "Time to tell her what's really going on." "More than a simple shakedown run." "Comes down from the top." "This is big." "Beyond mere human interests." "Humans don't have the best reputation." "Not the only reason I'm here." "Wants to see you in action." "Evaluate you." "Accept a human into their ranks." "I put your name forward as a candidate for the Spectres." "Need to see your skills for myself."

The revelations about the mission she had expected, not the content, but the fact that information would be forthcoming. What totally caught her off guard was the reason for Kryik's presence. This news cast the reassignment in a whole new light, but she still felt like she had been charged by a krogan at first; her chest tightened and her nerves tingled almost to the point that they were burning. She kept her hands tightly clasped behind her back, tensing the muscles in her arms trying to exercise as much control as she could muster, despite it she still struggled against the familiar tingling sensation in her fingertips. The commander was certain that her surprise was obvious by the candor of her questions. He responded to her frankness with more of the same.

"It's rare to find individuals with the skills we seek. I don't care that you're human, Shepard. I only care that you can do the job," Nihlus replied to her question about his recommendation of a human. He loomed over her for a moment. "I've been watching you and your work for quite some time."

Anderson went farther, assuring her that this course was something the Alliance supported fully. Shepard knew why he said it. The captain had probably overstepped because his statements made clear that she was being groomed, which was both flattering, but not at the same time. Being given orders and being reassigned and being sent on missions was one thing. Being told your entire career was becoming some type of political endeavor was wholly another. She felt like a human sacrifice in some ways, a specimen being offered up to the Council for the promise of tenuous future blessings from the alien gods in control of the galactic community.

Shepard had already gone through this with the Alliance after the Blitz; some of the parliament and the Alliance brass had wanted a poster girl, a hero they could plaster everywhere and point to as a symbol of humanity's strength and resolve. She'd shrank back from that and dashed their hopes in the one press interview they'd gotten her to agree to. Now it looked like the same thing was about to happen. The Alliance needed something and she fit the bill, but this wasn't like being sent to some pirate moon and clearing out a threat. To Shepard this was asking her to step outside of everything she knew, this felt like being asked to walk away from everything she was.

Anderson seemed to see it. "Hackett put your name up. I backed it. As did Zahakis." Shepard's eyes shot to his at the mention of the Commandant of the N-School, who had been her training officer. "Hell, no one who had any input expressed any doubt. And the Alliance needs this."

Her mind raced, but there didn't seem to be anything coherent in any of the thoughts. The commander had never considered this possibility; she didn't even know the job well enough to know if she wanted it. But in that brief moment it seemed like it was enough that the people she trusted wanted this for her, that the Alliance needed her to take this step. So she agreed, like they all knew she would. Because when push came to shove, Shepard was a dedicated soldier and one thing people always counted on from her was that she would do what needed to be done.

Joker's voice was a welcome reprieve from her thoughts and the weight that had been placed on her. "Transmission from Eden Prime. Captain, you need to see this."

The video served to push everything else to the back of her mind. In that moment there was no recommendation, there was no evaluation, and all the parts of her life listing off course disappeared. Shepard's focus was keenly turned to the attack, that ship hovering frozen on the screen, and getting the artifact out of the middle of whatever was happening on Eden Prime.

"Tell Alenko and Jenkins to suit up, Commander. You're going in," Anderson ordered still staring at the image of the strange vessel on the monitor.

"On it, Captain. See you down there, Nihlus," she said as she darted out of the room.

 

v.

Dr. Chakwas reminded Corporal Richard Jenkins of his grandmother, and not in the good way. She continued to lecture him about his romantic view of the situation on the ship long after the commander had slipped past them into the comm room. Chakwas was nice and all but he didn't understand what she was trying to accomplish. All he could do was think how wrong she was. How can she ignore the fact that there were two highly decorated N7 officers and a well-respected turian Spectre on board? He knew there was something going on. There just had to be. The corporal merely hoped that he might get to play some kind of part in it. He had a little hope of it, despite his relative inexperience in the field, Shepard had told him he had potential.

Leaning against the wall, he partially listened to the doctor as she informed him that his notions were exaggerated and he should consider exploring some less fantastic sources for more realistic information about the officers and other individuals he worked with.

"Excuse me, Doctor," Shepard said too calmly.

Jenkins straightened when he felt the commander's hand on his arm. He could feel the expression of surprise on his face as he looked over at her, and immediately tried to contain it.

Her voice was low as she looked him in the eye. Jenkins was held spellbound in the cool seriousness of her gaze; he couldn't have looked away if he wanted to. Her tone was even and impassive as she said, "I need you to walk to the cockpit. Walk. Quietly tell Lieutenant Alenko to suit up and meet us in the cargo bay."

Jenkins nodded. "Yes, ma'am." It didn't hit him until he was halfway up the bridge. She'd said us. Us. He was going. His heart started pounding in his chest when the realization struck him. And he had to make a concentrated effort to walk to his destination.

When he delivered the message Alenko's eyes had widened slightly and he hopped out of the chair. "Walk," Jenkins said, repeating the word Shepard had stressed to the Corporal.

The lieutenant shot a look at the corporal.

"Shepard said to walk." Jenkins nodded at the officer and Alenko returned it.

Within minutes Richard was in the cargo bay, pulling the Lancer assault rifles out of the weapons locker and setting them on the nearby table. Shepard already had her sidearm, a banged up little Edge pistol that looked like it had seen more action than the corporal had. Lieutenant Alenko's pistol he noticed was a pristinely kept Kessler. He couldn't help but notice the similarity between the officers and their side arms, or so it seemed from his point of view -Shepard was battle-hardened and proven leader; Alenko was clean cut, by-the-book tech genius.

He grinned as he turned back to the locker. Jenkins didn't much like pistols and pulled out a Scimitar shotgun, placing it on the table. He hadn't anticipated Shepard to return from the locker with a Reaper. Jenkins guessed that fully extended the sniper rifle was almost as tall as she was, though he knew it to be an exaggeration, the only person who didn't seem surprised to see the weapon in the commander's hands was the Spectre. But then Nihlus didn't seem surprised by much and probably wasn't.

None of them spoke. They prepped their weapons as they waited. Within a few minutes Nihlus had joined them to wait for the drop. It was distracting. Jenkins watched them all. They each had their personal tastes in weapons and each had their own rituals. Alenko rechecked his pistol a dozen times while he ran some sort of program on his omnitool. Shepard had broken down and reassembled her weapons then leaned against the weapons locker twirling that blade people whispered about between her fingers. They said she always carried in her boot, even on the ship. Even Nihlus wasn't immune to superstition; once he'd cleared his shotgun, he'd held it delicately and whispered to it softly before holstering it.

Jenkins was keenly aware that he didn't have a ritual. He had cleared his weapons then stood there observing it all. But then surrounded by that group of soldiers, how could he really do anything else?

"Commander." The knife stilled instantly and her eyes shot to the corporal's. In fact, they all were looking at him. "What's the job?"

Shepard didn't answer immediately, but her eyes did move to the others before returning to Jenkins'. "Let's go with elaborate Easter egg hunt."

Jenkins smiled, while Alenko's brow knitted tightly.

"There's something down there the brass wants us to pick up," Shepard clarified after a glance at the lieutenant.

Jenkins looked over at Nihlus.

"Corporal," Shepard said, drawing the young marine's attention back to her. "It's a recovery mission. That's all you need to know right now. That's all you're cleared to know." The look in her eyes cleared up the state of things and the calmness in her voice served to remind him of his position.

With a nod he looked away and noticed the lieutenant was still staring at the commander with an intensity that suggested he was trying to achieve some level of psychic communication. Alenko didn't seem to take too well to the scant information she'd provided either. But both men knew it was all the explanation they were going to get.

When the captain came down, Shepard propped her foot on a crate and slipped the knife carefully into its sheathe. He couldn't help but wonder why she had that one when she also carried a standard issue blade strapped to her thigh as well. He shook it off and followed the others toward the bay doors that were opening slowly.

The wind whipped through the bay as the ship neared the first drop point. Nihlus was dropped first. And Jenkins couldn't help the satisfied grin that curved on his lips when the Spectre announced that he moved faster alone, and left on his own.

Shepard's eyes on him wiped the smile from Jenkins' lips as she assured the captain her team could handle their part of the mission just before they were offloaded south of Nihlus' drop point. For the corporal it quickly became clear that he wasn't chosen as part of the fire team for this mission just because he was from Eden Prime. Shepard relied on her nav points for locations. Though both officers directed occasional inquires in his direction and he freely offered up other information as it seemed useful, Richard genuinely felt that he was on the ground because he was supposed to be, because he was ready.

 

vi.

The ship they'd seen on the transmission was still hovering on the horizon when the fire team from the Normandy was dropped and Shepard couldn't place it. She'd never seen or even heard of anything like it-the scale was impressive and intimidating. It dwarfed most of the ships she was familiar with. But from their drop point she couldn't get a line of sight on it to get a better look. As a kid she'd built models of everything: planes and ships, fighters, cruisers, and frigates; human, turian, asari, salarian, anything she could get her hands on. Her father encouraged it because it gave the two of them something they could share together-there wasn't a lot in the way of entertainment on military vessels, at least not for children.

Their insertion point was quiet, and though they heard weapons fire in the distance, there seemed to be little or no fighting in their immediate area. The simple retrieval was now surrounded by too many questions for her tastes. Not that she ever expected a mission to be clear cut. But she didn't even know what she was dealing with on Eden Prime, outside of a mysterious Prothean beacon.

"Keep your eyes open people," she ordered as she flipped the safety off her Lancer and moved across the rocky little plateau toward the mountain pass smoothly at a pace akin to a jog.

None of them knew what to expect nor did they even know what to look for. The transmission had shown the vessel, and there was clearly an attack happening. But at no time in the transmission had she seen anyone who was not human, and all those in the feed had seemed to be Alliance. Hell, Shepard couldn't even guess if they would meet any resistance. But she leaned on the side of caution and ordered them to leap frog their way along the pass, two covering one as they moved toward the cliff side. Shepard held the point and scanned the perimeter, once satisfied that it was clear she ordered her squad to move up.

Alenko and Shepard waited as Jenkins moved toward his next cover position; the officers' eyes scanned for targets. She heard it before she saw anything. The shots seemed to come out of nowhere then Shepard saw the small culprits. Three small drones hovering in the distance. What the hell is going on? She hadn't been looking skyward, she'd been expecting mercenaries: batarians, humans, maybe a few salarians, an asari or two-you're typical pirate crew. She turned her sights on them, but once they were down she realized it was too late. The mistake had been made, and the false assumption had proved fatal.

"Ripped right through his shields," Alenko said kneeling over the body, swiping a hand over the young man's face, closing Jenkins' eyes.

Shepard nodded as she looked down at the boy's face. Fuck. This was precisely what I'd hoped to avoid. Her jaw clinched involuntarily as she chastised herself. She should have seen them. Shepard shook her head, as the lieutenant stood. He looked a little guilty too, but she couldn't do anything for either of their consciences in that moment.

"We have to keep moving." Shepard glanced at her rifle then met his gaze again. "We'll come back for him. Never leave a man behind," she whispered the last sentiment to herself more than to Alenko, and she damn well intended to ensure it. She might have lost men before, but she'd never left anyone, and she was not about to start now.


	5. Eden Primer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing is what they expected on the garden world of Eden Prime. Finding first geth, then another turian Spectre, Shepard must lead a green fire team through heavy resistance to find the beacon they were sent for. Shepard, Alenko, and Ashley Williams must all overcome and adapt to situations they could not have expected to encounter on the ground of one of the first human colonies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acknowledgements: I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers-xforeverquotex and my paramour. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece.

**FWN: 05 Eden Primer**

**i.**

* * *

 

A pair of marines moved along the quiet ridge overlooking one of Eden Prime's smaller settlements. The light gray pillars whispered of civilization among the pristine landscape that was offset by the ominous reddening sky. If not for the smell of smoke and death, this planet could have been an idyllic setting for a relaxing stroll through these mountains. This garden planet was one of the first four colonies Earth had established. The Spectre was right: it was meant to be an example of human ingenuity and accomplishment.

Whoever was responsible for the destruction had just cut through the defenses and landed too easily, sweeping through the colony's meager defenses. Shepard was certain given their location, far from the major cities, that it was likely this was a softer target. But even given that, the attackers should not have been able to reach the surface so easily. She just wished they knew more, All they had to go on was the fact that the technology was highly advanced, or so she guessed from how easily the drones had cut through the corporal's shields, and those little bots were dangerous as hell.  _But a_ _t least we have a slightly better idea of what they we're up against_ , she thought for a second then reconsidered _. Though not really, but it's something to watch for, at least._

The two stopped near the debris of the first drone and Shepard covered Alenko as he scanned the devices.

"Anything?" she asked without looking at him, her eyes scanned the horizon. She damn sure wasn't planning to lose anyone else on that rock.

"Not sure. I've never seen anything like it," he said, picking up a section of the device and looking it over. "It almost looks like…" He paused mulling over something that had come to him. "No. I couldn't be." He shook his head.

"Couldn't be what?"

"Nothing," he replied, second guessing himself.

She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Let's keep moving." He moved to her side, weapon at the ready, waiting for her to move. "I've got your back."

Shepard wanted to know what he was thinking, given that the scans hadn't offered up anything they could use. But she guessed he didn't want to put out a hypothesis without more data. She'd have to try to break him of that trait of the engineer's mentality. In this particular situation a hunch was more useful than the nothing she was currently working off of. Though she wanted to, there wasn't enough time to push him to give up his opinion, so she took point and led them toward the navpoint for the pickup location. They came across more drones on the way, but this time they were prepared for both the hacked Allinace defense drones and the other little grayish ones.

At the mouth of the trench they caught sight of the movement followed by weapons fire fast approaching their position. The commander rolled into cover and Alenko pressed against the tree he'd been tucked behind. They each peeked over and around their cover and caught sight of a soldier running full out with a trio of the same drones that dropped Jenkins hot on her six. When the soldier tripped Shepard tensed, but the downed woman didn't miss a beat. Three shots each and the sleek drones dropped out of the sky.

 _Nicely done_ , the commander nodded as the flying platforms crashed into the dirt.

Like the soldier, Shepard's attention was pulled elsewhere by a sharp scream. A pair of synthetics were dragging a man across the trench by his wrists. When they lifted him and held him awkwardly atop what looked like a massive tripod, he started muttering something, presumably begging for his life or maybe praying to his god of choice. It was clear that he was not going to get through this, not an unarmed civilian being manhandled by two machines. Shepard heard the gasp when the spike launched through his body, but didn't register it as her own until she realized she was holding her breath.

The synthetic turned toward a different sound-the other woman on the field scrambling out of the line of fire. The two machines crept carefully in the white-clad soldier's direction. The commander didn't know if they'd seen the other female yet or not, but when they raised their weapons Shepard knew she had to do something, anything.  _I am not going to watch this again_. Nyx's instinct took over, along with the promise she'd made to herself-she was not going to lose another soldier on Eden Prime, any soldier, if it was in her power to stop it. She knew she couldn't have saved the civilian, but those damn synthetics were not taking that marine.

"Follow my lead, Lieutenant," Shepard ordered calmly as she traded the rifle for her pistol. She'd done this before and knew just how long she had before her barrier and shield would fall, but it was still a risk.

**ii.**

* * *

 

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams pressed her head against the rock.  _What the hell is going on?_ It was a question that had been repeating though her brain since the massive ship cut through the morning fog. Then the synthetics appeared. Then all hell broke loose. She was still playing catch up even as she leaned out of cover and laid down a few bursts at the geth moving toward her.

The high-pitched whining of the geth weapons was a stark contrast to the more familiar sound of Alliance standard issue weapons, which was what drew her attention from her attackers. The movement was fluid and striking and Williams could do nothing but watch in relief as another soldier, a human, rolled out of cover. The shimmering blue sheathe seemed to pop with the movement of her left hand as she fired her pistol freely with her right.

As the barrier rippled, Williams knew the attention had been drawn away from her and she turned back to the machines as more gunfire joined the mix from behind her. Williams winced at the bright crackling sound that jumped between the two geth as the third soldier moved toward her position. Once the area was clear, Ashley couldn't help but smile and breathe deeply in relief. It was the first moment she'd had to just to stop and breathe in hours, but it didn't last long.

The introductions and pleasantries were over quickly. The woman who'd drawn off the synthetics wanted information, but Williams didn't have much to offer. She did know that one of her squad's officers had called these things geth, which seemed to make sense to this lieutenant. But then the Lieutenant Commander, Shepard, asked about the chief's unit. Ashley tried to steel her nerves, but her throat still stung. "My unit's gone. All of them. Ambush at the dig site, just up the trench."

The blue eyes were not quite so sharp now as Williams looked at the officer who'd just saved her ass. What she saw there was sympathy, understanding, as she said,. "We've all lost people on this rock."

"Yes, ma'am."

"All right, Chief. You feel up for a little payback?"

"Oorah, ma'am," Williams replied, checking the safety on her weapon.

The trace of a grin on Shepard's lips didn't go unnoticed by either of the other marines. Williams knew the name, and couldn't help but wonder if it was the same person. From the stories she'd heard, Ashley couldn't be sure. Though used to walking point, the chief fell in on the commander's left taking the officer's lead as they moved into the area where the beacon had been.

The lieutenant must have noticed her studying the commander, because when the radio message pulled Shepard's attention for a moment, he leaned toward the chief and confirmed what she'd been thinking. "Yeah. It's  _that_  Shepard."

"I didn't …," she protested.

"We all did," he assured with a little trace of a grin.

"Nihlus is pushing ahead. Move out!" Shepard called before she jogged up the path to the ridge where the research camp was located.

When they reached the top of the ridge it was all Williams could do to keep her visceral response under control. The geth had hit the camp hard. The smell of charred flesh drew the pallor from her skin and she suddenly felt clammy as sweat slicked her entire body. She swallowed back the anger and nausea as she walked a few feet behind and to the left of the commander. The smoke threatened to choke her, but Ashley held her breath for a moment to calm herself, knowing that if she started coughing there would be no way she could keep herself from throwing up. And that was not the kind of impression she wanted to make on Commander Shepard.

Williams had seen those spikes all over the place, but no one in her squad had known what they were for or understood why the geth were setting them up everywhere until they reached the top of the hill. The spikes slid down with a gracefully metallic scrape and three of those creatures stumbled toward them mindlessly. Then they'd projected an electric snap that popped her shields. "Holy hell," Williams replied, dropping back and firing at least a dozen rounds into one until it dropped. "What are those things?"

"They were probably scientists," Shepard replied as moved toward one. "Get scans and readings off them, Alenko. I want to know what the hell these things did to them." She moved respectfully between the bodies, seemingly conscious of the fact that they had once been human, though clearly they weren't now.

While the commander studied the spikes, Ashley lost her thoughts for a moment in the glowing cracks in the burnt husk of remaining flesh on the bodies. Whatever these creatures were now, they were clearly human once-just like her not long before, the remnants of humanity etched upon their bodies, and the thought was intensely disturbing. Alenko's suggestion that the spikes were psychological warfare was way more accurate than either Shepard or Ashley wanted to think too hard about at that moment.

"They're turning their own dead against us," Kaidan muttered without disguising his disgust, as he inspected the lifeless corpse of one of the altered colonists.

" _Normandy_ , are you seeing this?" Shepard asked on a separate channel. "What the hell is going on here?"

"This is the first I've seen of anything like this Commander," Anderson answered, concern obvious in his voice. "I've burst some images to Command to see what they've got."

It wasn't his voice she had been expecting. Shepard was hoping it would be someone she could chastise for the lack of intel. "We need to find someone that can tell us something. These things came out of Quarian space didn't they? Shouldn't the Council races have some kind of intel. Hell, we are working with a Spectre here. Someone has to know something."

"They are called Dragon's Teeth, Commander," Nihlus replied icily. "The intelligence on them is highly limited, we only learned of their existence very recently. The salarians' tests hadn't given us anything useful, and we weren't sure what they were being used for… until now."

Williams had been watching the squad leader and saw her wince then bite her lip. The chief could sympathize; she still couldn't wrap her head around it.  _This is all completely insane. Synthetics tearing through a human colony and turning people into… who the hell knows what._ She could see no rhyme or reason for it. Eden Prime was mostly agricultural. There wasn't a lot of industry, nor was the military presence significant. This planet was not a high value target, it was not the type of planet that warranted this type of invasion.

**iii.**

* * *

 

"Alenko," Shepard said with a nod toward the obviously locked door of the shed. He made quick work of it, and when the panel glowed green she was at his right shoulder, pistol in hand. On the three-count they slipped through the door covering the entire room before while Williams had the flank.

The remaining scientists were little help. "We'll lock you back in," the commander told the pair before she trotted down the ramp. "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't think we can put much stock into anything the doctor there said," Alenko opined.

"That's an understatement," Williams scoffed.

"We good?" Shepard asked Alenko, who was finishing up with the door. When he nodded, the blonde turned to the taller female. "You take point, Chief."

"Yes, ma'am."

When they approached the spaceport, they all stopped cold in their tracks.

"What is that? Off in the distance," Kaidan said quickly.

"That's the ship," Williams declared.

Shepard just stared at the massive black structure offset against the reddening sky. The bloody arcing electricity skated along its form, but the reason for it was not evident. Its silhouette was like nothing she could place, well, at least in architecture or engineering. It looked like an insect, with little short leg-like structures along the widest point of its diamond-shaped body, and longer, more supportive ones near the lower point. As it lifted into the air, the arcing intensified. The red streaks danced wildly across its dark hull, popping erratically into bright bursts of crimson which lit up the sky. The dim gray contrail chased it upward into the atmosphere as the howling hum of it receded as well. The commander watched, transfixed, until it burst through the cloud cover.

"Shepard," Alenko said, shaking her shoulder.

The shimmer of his barrier at the gunfire pulled her back to the situation at hand. "Watch yourself, Williams," the commander called as she turned her weapon toward one of the transformed colonists downing it quickly as she scrambled out of the line of fire, Alenko moving with her.

"Thanks," the chief sighed before popping out of cover to finish off another geth.

With the geth dispatched, the team cleared the spaceport area. The smugglers were no threat to the squad, whether they were a threat to the colony was another matter. As they approached the docking area, the lieutenant called Shepard's attention to the body.

"Nihlus!" Shepard rushed toward the Spectre and knelt at his side. She yanked off a glove, fingertips searching in vain for the pulse she knew she wouldn't find.  _Son of a bitch_. She wanted to scream it, wanted to vent her anger.  _Two_.  _You managed to lose two good men on a goddamn scavenger hunt_.

Her shoulders slumped as she sat back on her calves, leaning back and looking into the formerly sharp eyes of her dead acquaintance. She cleared her throat and slipped her gauntlet back on. After a quick examination of the Spectre's body, she found what she was looking for. One shot in the back of the head. She inspected the wound, which raised more questions than it answered.

"This was up close. Who the hell could get the drop on a Spectre?" she whispered to his blank eyes as she closed them. "What the hell is going on down here?" Shepard murmured quietly on the open channel.

She didn't want, expect, or get a response. Everyone on the channel knew she was just voicing what they were all thinking and feeling. The crazy scientist they'd run into said he'd seen a turian long before the  _Normandy_  arrived, but she'd discounted it because he was off his meds. The smugglers spoke of the invasion in terms that bordered on the fantastical. Then there was the ship. The geth-they hadn't left the quarian home system in three centuries, there was no rhyme or reason to why they would or should be on Eden Prime.  _Unless_.  _But what could the geth want with Prothean technology?_

With the soft scraping sound, the two marines at her side directed their weapons at a stack of boxes on the deck.

"C'mon out. Slowly." The commander stood, aiming her sidearm into the darkness. "You have to the count of thr-"

The commander didn't have to finish the threat before the man crept out of the darkness; his fear was etched on his face and stained his trousers. The questioning was quick and thorough. The dock worker told them everything he knew fairly easily, even the details that could have gotten him shot. Williams had not been the only one irritated with the man, but they left him to join the other smugglers and proceeded with the mission. She'd include the situation in her report, but she wasn't an MP or a security officer, and she had more pressing concerns.

Shepard's mind ran quickly as they moved toward the tram.  _Saren_.  _Nihlus knew him. They spoke like old friends then Saren shot him in the back._  At least that was what the dock worker had told them. She believed him because she was fairly certain he was too scared to lie to three armed Alliance marines in the middle of a geth invasion. And in her mind, his story explained the fact that Nihlus was dead, and the method. The turian was not careless; she had read that off him from the start- he wasn't a risk taker. She was well aware that he was calculated, precise, and cautious.

Suddenly despite the ravings, Shepard recalled Manuel. He mentioned seeing a turian prior to the attack. It had not seemed possible at the time, but now-with Nihlus dead, supposedly by another turian. For a moment, the commander couldn't help but wonder if he wasn't quite as crazy as he seemed.  _If he had been right about the turian… No. Not now_. She shook her head and pushed onward.

The sound of a rocket thudding against the metal reinforcements caught them by surprise. It could have been a challenge, but the team handled the geth, both large and small, with only minor pause.

"Guess they come in small, medium, and large," the chief quipped as she looked down at the tall black synthetic that had charged her. After it had knocked her back, Williams had thought that was it. But as she'd scrambled backward on the slick deck of the tram cars, Shepard had appeared and sent it flying backwards into a smaller geth behind it before she finished them both off with her Edge.

Alenko had helped the chief to her feet then laughed. "I knew you'd watered that move down."

Shepard turned and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Come now. I didn't want to kill you, just piss you off a little." She toed at the large geth's head with her boot before turning her attention back to Alenko. "How about you take us for a ride, Lieutenant?"

"My pleasure, Commander." He ran over to the console and got it operational again.

"Get us there quick but slow it up when we get close," she said as she leaned toward him, her hand on his shoulder.

He merely nodded as he looked over at her.

"Williams, you've got port side."

"Aye, ma'am." The Chief took up a position on the lieutenant's left and raised her rifle.

Shepard took a step away from the lieutenant, pulling her hand off his shoulder. It had been too easy for her to get that close, she thought as she readied her assault rifle.  _Distance, Nyx. Good ole professional distance._  She just hoped the reminder would work. As the tram moved toward the other port, Shepard concentrated on her breathing and watching the perimeter. Just to be safe, she didn't even hazard a glance to her left until they neared the platform.

The tram ride made her nervous, partly because of the overwhelming lack of cover available on the vehicle. The only possible cover that presented itself was the control panel and it wasn't even enough cover for one soldier let alone three. She wanted off that vehicle. Hell, deep down she wanted off Eden Prime.

"What the hell is that?" Williams asked as they approached the other platform.

"Detonation charges," Alenko answered first as he slowed the tram to a halt.

His response had been rather too calm, Shepard thought.  _But then again, explosives and various types of tech were right in his wheelhouse, so why wouldn't he be completely calm about a large armed device?_

The chattering on the platform above them, made her jaw clench reflexively. The sound the geth made was quite distinctive. She didn't know if they were communicating with one another but it certainly sounded like it to her, and it was the best answer she had for the sound.

"Handle it, Lieutenant. Cover him, Chief," she ordered, as she dashed up the ramp turning her attention to the geth scattered across the platform. Ashley set herself between the synthetics and Alenko, though no targets came into view or seemed to sight the pair of marines on the lower platform.

"Done," Alenko noted in less than thirty seconds and moved up the ramp with Williams behind him. A quick scan offered the location of another charge. "Other side of the platform, Commander. I can see two."

"Got it." Shepard led the party across the platform. "We'll cover you, take it down fast."

"On it." The lieutenant darted over to the device and tapped furiously alternately on his omnitool and the device interface. Kaidan remained undisturbed by the geth as he disarmed the explosives and removed the detonators for two more devices.

"I'm pinned, ma'am." Williams replied quickly. The sniper and a rocket trooper had the soldier locked down, and Alenko with her. The two looked over at Shepard who was still tucked up behind a crate a few meters behind the other two marines.

Shepard thought a moment before she sheathed herself in blue and sprinted back down the platform then over and back up the other side. "Hold tight," she radioed as she ran.

Williams and Alenko had kept the attention of the geth, which allowed Shepard the freedom to take the time to line up her shot. The resounding crack was followed by a snap and a gush, which drew the attention of the rocket trooper away from her crew. Shepard was already on her feet when the tall, thin, white synthetic faced her. Once the rocket was fired, she made her move. The force of her charge thrust the machine into the chief's line of fire and Williams shredded it.

Dashing up the platform, Shepard slid to a stop near the last charge. She worked fast, watching the timer tick down on the device. When Alenko reached her she was carefully removing the detonator from its housing. She stood and held it out to him as he stared at her wide-eyed. Clearly, he hadn't anticipated her ability to handle disarming the bombs. He took the detonator from her, stowing it with the others before he readied his weapon and brought up the flank.

"There it is," Williams noted, looking at the device they'd been searching for.

"And there they are," Shepard added, indicating the geth with a three-round burst.

The platform was cleared and contained quickly. She did a careful sweep of the port area before making contact with the  _Normandy_  to update them on the location of the artifact. The three of them approached the edge of the platform, taking careful note of the scorched earth beyond.

"Looks like someone set off a bomb," Ashley marveled.

"It's the landing site," Shepard intoned.

"What the hell could have done this?"

Shepard looked over at them, both of them were staring at her. She presumed because it was easier than looking at the still molten sign of the invasion. "I don't have the faintest idea," she confided.

"Let's get this thing out of here." The commander turned her back on the massive patch still smoldering and crossed the platform as she raised the  _Normandy_. She eyed the humming device for a moment as she spoke with the captain. Alenko seemed fascinated, which wasn't surprising. The commander was still in a state of hyper-awareness and watched both marines carefully as she delivered a quick situation report to the ship about the bombs they'd diffused and the current seemingly active state of the device. Active alien technology was equally as concerning for her as active hostile geth.

**iv.**

* * *

 

"It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up," Williams announced, looking at the glowing device.

"Did anyone say what it is? Or what they thought it was?" Alenko asked as he inspected the device thoroughly circling it widely in an arc.

"I never heard anything about it, but the scientists didn't really talk to us." Ashley turned her attention to the conversation Shepard was having with the  _Normandy_.

Kaidan tapped at his omnitool as he took a few readings, trying to place the strange hum that seemed to emanate from the device. The sound was almost comforting, inviting, though the slight tug was a little strange. Without looking away from the artifact, Kaidan's fingers danced across the interface of his 'tool. He finally pulled his eyes away from the device and to his readings.  _It is emitting some kind of signal_ , but his omnitool couldn't decipher or even record it. He glared at the rebellious device as he took another small step forward.

Suddenly what had been a fairly gentle pulse seemed to grab him insistently. It was reminiscent of when he was a kid and his younger sister would grab his wrist and drag him to whatever discovery she needed to share with her older brother. The main difference in this instance was that Alenko had no desire to find out what this force wanted. No matter how he struggled he still moved toward the device.

As panic started to peek in, there was another force dragging him back. Landing hard on the deck, Kaidan shook his head and leaned up. Shepard gave him a quick triumphant little smirk before she turned and eyed the beacon. Moving to take a step back, the commander lurched forward, almost as if pushed by that unseen force that had been tugging at him moments earlier. It was as if the device finally lost patience with the humans.

"Shepard!" Kaidan yelled, reaching for her as she rose off the ground like a marionette.

"No!" Williams wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him back away. "Don't touch her."

Deep down Alenko knew the chief was right. But he felt responsible, guilty. If he hadn't neared the object, if he'd kept his natural curiosity in check, Shepard wouldn't be in the throes of that force. He knelt there on the dock watching in horrified silence. Williams refused to let go of him. She was gripping him more tightly than necessary and the lieutenant realized he wasn't the only one that was worried.

Shepard just hung there as if suspended by strings. Her hands hung limply from her outstretched arms. Her head lay back as if she were surveying the reddening sky. The rest of her body looked tense. The tightness in her jaw suggested she may even be in pain.

His conscience yelled at him. He'd failed Jenkins in that gully and now he'd just put his squad leader at risk, he'd just put her in extreme danger. Accusatory statements rolled through his mind as he watched in terrified silence as his commander endured some indescribable alien torment because he'd been fascinated by a piece of live Prothean technology.

_And it was all for nothing. Shepard's suffering b_ _ecause I broke protocol. She could die because I wanted to know the why of something._

Unable to take his eyes off her, Kaidan's guilt multiplied by the second and finally he slammed his hand against the deck in frustration.  _Let her go already._  Williams loosened her grip on him. She now merely clung to his shoulders, but when she started to tremble he felt her grip tighten slightly. It was one thing to lose someone quick, like Jenkins-a handful of shots and the little drones had snuffed him out before any of them really registered who or what had done it.  _This is too much._ Having to watch, being powerless because they couldn't risk it-this ripped at Kaidan's humanity.

As abruptly as it all began, it ended with an explosion and Shepard crumpled to the ground in a heap. With her release his inaction ended. Hastily scrambling across the dock, Alenko leaned over her and relief struck him like a brick to the face when she glanced up at him with a trace of recognition and smiled weakly. Then it was gone as she fell into unconsciousness.

The staff lieutenant stamped down everything but his training and before Williams rejoined him, he'd started the scan. Her pulse was weaker than he'd like. " _Normandy_. We have a situation. Requesting priority extract this location."

"No can do, Alenko," Joker replied. "Too hot."

He skimmed the readings for a moment. "Give me the nearest coordinates. The beacon exploded. Something happened to Shepard."

"What?" Anderson barked.

"No idea, sir. The beacon was live. It did something to her. But she's in fair enough shape to move. Coordinates, please."

The calm voice that came out of his mouth was a façade, an act that had to hold up until he got them all on the ship. He chewed at the inside of his cheek, irritated with the situation, with himself. But none of that mattered in that moment. Shepard needed him to focus, to be the officer at least for a little while. It wasn't the first time he'd had to take command in the field. But it was the first time he'd had to assume it because he'd screwed up.

The coordinates came over the channel and Williams punched them into the device on her left wrist. "We're on the move," Alenko told the  _Normandy_  then looked at the chief, "You're on point."

**v.**

* * *

 

"Aye, aye, sir," the chief agreed.

Williams stood and glanced at her omnitool, before her eyes were drawn to the lieutenant. He handed her the commander's assault rifle and the Reaper, which she eyed for a moment before stowing. Then she took his AR as well. She surveyed the lieutenant as his hands moved slowly and gingerly down her neck. He stared down at nothing concentrating not on what he saw, but what he felt. Ashley knew the drill, he was checking for a spinal injury, from the fall or from the device.

At first, she thought she was imagining it. But once he'd rolled the commander and lifted her to her feet, Williams was certain he was taking excessive care with the other officer. There was a respect and deference in the way Alenko handled the commander's unconscious form. "All right, Shepard," he muttered, draping her right hand over his shoulder and squatted down. "Up we go."

When he got back to his feet, he glanced at the chief and held out his left hand for his rifle. "Lead on," he told her.

She merely nodded and led them back to the tram. They met no resistance, though they hadn't expected to find much, since they were back tracking through ground they had already cleared. Williams couldn't help but notice the consideration and care Alenko took with the commander. But she couldn't decide whether or not it was a sign of something more than respect for an injured comrade.

Even in her own training, carrying conscious soldiers, Williams had been quite careful with them. And trying to carry another, even if they were smaller than you was still an exercise in extreme caution so as to avoid injuring yourself or the victim.

Retracing their steps through the research camp gave them a little pause, only because the shed door was no longer locked. She hoped the scientists escaped, and when the idea of something else popped into her head, she pushed it back out.  _No, they got out. They'll be fine. The commander and the L-T cleared this area. They're fine_ , she told herself.

As they got to the path, she noticed Alenko lean his right shoulder against one of the support walls.

"You doing all right, sir? I could…"

"I got it, Williams." He started down toward the trench. The little bite to his voice spoke volumes, the strain of the situation was weighing on both of them.

"It's the armor," the chief speculated, unbidden. "Looks light, feels light. But once you add another's body weight and their armor to your own. Even the tiniest members of your team can be a bitch to carry."

Her eyes went wide when she realized she'd let it slip. But with a glance at the biotic he didn't seem to mind her speaking way too freely. He just chuckled and nodded.

"And if you haven't done it in a while. It can be hard."

"That's probably it," the lieutenant agreed. "I don't think I've done this in a few years, probably since rescue training."

"You?"

He tried to shrug, but it didn't really work. "Hey, I took any training they'd let me near."

"Sounds like me. But something tells me our reasons for it are different."

Williams refused to look at him. She let her eyes scan the direction they were travelling. She'd put in for any training she qualified for because she wanted to be worth the trouble of having on the roster. Ashley worked her ass off for every promotion, every crap detail she'd ever been assigned. All to just prove she was good enough. She didn't do it for recognition, for her it was penance. Her father had tried, but still couldn't overcome their family history. Deep down a part of her hoped she might be able to right things finally.

"I don't know. I just thought it'd make me more valuable," Alenko said easily. "Not a lot of places for biotics to go."

She glanced back at him.

"I just didn't want to get lost in the shuffle you know. Spent most of my career as  _that biotic_ ," he pointed out as they trudged uphill slowly.

"Yeah. I've been there, kind of," Williams agreed. He looked at her curiously. "I mean not right there, I'm no Yoda-"

The shocked laughter made her smile. And he seemed genuinely surprised and pleased with her chosen comparison.

"Yoda, huh?"

"Why not?" she shrugged. "You guys can do all that crazy sh… stuff with your minds. And Yoda was a bad ass. Not the little green big-eared guy you wanted to start any mess with."

"Okay. I guess I can see that."

"But like I was saying. I can get where you're coming from-wanting people to look past the little things. See something more."

"Not necessarily more," he admitted. "Just all, rather than the part that's most prominent."

"Yeah." She nodded, because her voice was drowned out by the sound of the engines of the  _Normandy_. The ship set down and the two of them walked up the deck. Chakwas and two corpsmen relieved the lieutenant of his burden, placing the unconscious XO on a stretcher and trotting off toward the elevator with the doctor already starting her work.

The captain looked displeased. When he crossed toward them, she snapped to and saluted. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212," she sounded off, holding the posture.

Her insistence on protocol had the unintentional effect of calming the captain's ire. "Chief. I'm Captain David Anderson. Welcome aboard the  _Normandy_." He saluted her. "Let me guess."

"Shepard pulled my six out of the fire."

The captain laughed heavy with the concern that darkened his eyes. "Yeah. She does that," he breathed.

"Sir," Alenko interrupted. "Commander stated she wanted Jenkins brought back with us. I can lead a team-"

"Already handled, Lieutenant. She relayed coordinates," the Captain assured, explaining that McMillan, Crosby, and Niveda had chanced it after the team had reached the objective.

"Now, would you mind telling me what the hell happened down there?"

Alenko stiffened visibly and came to the sharpest state of attention Williams could remember ever seeing. "Captain, it was my fault. I was trying to scan the beacon. It was emitting some type of signal, but I couldn't capture it. I got too close."

His face was stoic, he didn't move, but Ashley could see it in his eyes. He was hurting over this, and taking responsibility, didn't seem to alleviate any of it. Finally he shook his head slightly, more at himself than anything else it seemed, before his eyes darted away for a moment. Alenko tensed up and refocused his gaze on some random point on the other side of the cargo bay.

"Shepard had to throw me clear. But she got close enough for it to grab her"

"Grab her?"

"It lifted her in the air," Williams interrupted. "Held her there, then dropped her just as suddenly. Right before it exploded."

"That's it?" Anderson asked quickly.

"Yes, sir," the two marines agreed in unison.

"And it was humming," Williams volunteered.

"There was also a pulse that seemed biotic in nature," Alenko added. "I'm pretty sure that's how it picked the commander up."

"Get me those readings, Alenko. I mean five minutes ago. I'm going to have to give command something," Anderson barked. "Or they'll have all our stripes."

The captain walked off muttering, and visibly bothered by the events on the ground and it was likely complicated by the fact that his XO had been exposed to alien technology and lay unconscious in medical, or so the chief thought. Alenko looked more than tired, he looked completely drained. Then she felt it too, as the adrenaline production seemed to slow or stop. Her brain suddenly felt sluggish and the ache tensed the muscles she'd overused, some of which she had forgotten about since training.

"You should let one of the corpsmen check you out, Williams. C'mon. I'll give you the highlight reel. Cargo bay. Engineering. Gym. Elevator," he said, pointing at the doors at the back of the bay in turn after having waved a hand at the large open space as they walked to the third door he'd noted.

When they stepped out of the elevator, the directions became more complicated and she was fairly certain she wouldn't remember where the women's bunks were, though the mess and the head, she figured she'd be able to find again. They stopped at the door on the starboard side of the ship and he seemed to stare at the panel for a long moment before he hit it.

"And Medbay."

The activity in the room was more frantic than Williams had expected. Chakwas was yelling clipped directions at the two young men and one woman working with her. Machines beeped and whirred. But eventually the doctor acknowledged them.

"Lieutenant?" Chakwas questioned, by way of greeting.

"I'm going to guess no one can clear the chief here?"

The look in her eyes said it all, and Williams was certain Alenko had blanched. Ashley touched his shoulder and he looked at her sharply. "She'll be okay," she murmured in response to the concern she'd seen in his eyes.

"You can," Chakwas replied. "Maybe by then, I'll be able to free up someone to clear you."

With a light touch between Ashley's shoulder blades, Alenko pressed her toward the table nearest the door. "You heard the doctor."

"I'm fine," Williams argued.

The smile was strained, but he was trying to comfort her a little. "It's just a scan. If everything looks clear, you can grab a bite, a shower, a bunk, or whatever strikes your fancy."

During the scan, Williams was certain both their attentions was elsewhere. She didn't know what they were doing specifically or why-though on the larger scale she could tell they were busting their asses to fix whatever had happened to the commander. By the shifts in his demeanor and his face, the chief was also sure, Alenko knew more about exactly what was happening two tables away. And it concerned him greatly. He cleared her quickly, and without uttering another word.

Ashley thanked him before ducking out of the room. She didn't know what was happening and that was almost as nerve wracking as not knowing anything so the chief opted to take up the lieutenant's first three suggestions in the order they were offered. Once she fell on the thin, stiff mattress of an empty bottom bunk Ashley was out in a flash, awash in the sweet darkness of sleep.

**vi.**

* * *

 

"Dr. Chakwas," Kaidan called as he hopped off one of the other tables in the Medbay. "I think she's waking up."

The groan accompanied Shepard's left hand slowly rising to her forehead, the thin tubing of the IV seemed to catch her off guard, but the lieutenant caught her other hand before she could rip the line out of her arm. He wrapped her hand with his own and returned it to her side, holding it there as he leaned over her. The curve in her lips was slight, but the relief in her eyes was clear when she squeezed his hand.

"You doing all right, Lieutenant?" she croaked, her throat was dry and her voice hoarse.

He smiled widely. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You gave us quite the scare, Commander," Chakwas stated as she started a scan.

The gray-haired woman glanced up at the staff lieutenant and shooed him back from the table. Alenko chewed at his cheek as he took a step back, reluctantly releasing Shepard's hand.  _His concern was admirable,_ the doctor thought. But Chakwas could clearly see the guilt weighing on him. She hadn't thrown him out of the medbay after he was cleared because she knew he felt responsible; Karin knew that he was waiting around to be certain the commander was well.

The younger woman's vitals had leveled out a few hours after they returned to the ship, but when they'd first gotten Shepard to medical, Chakwas had her work cut out for her.

"Get this… off me," Shepard ordered, tugging at the IV and swallowing dryly in an attempt to get her normal voice back.

The lieutenant grabbed a bottle of water from the small refrigeration unit in the back of the medbay. Chakwas carefully pulled the IV out and sealed the wound quickly then helped the insistent officer into a sitting position. With a quick nod to Alenko, he opened and handed the bottle to Shepard.

"Appreciated."

"How are you feeling, Commander?" Chakwas asked, studying the officer carefully as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Better than the last time I was in your medbay," the commander quipped.

The doctor shook her head at the recollection. "Yes, well, the last time it was just a few stitches. This time…" Her eyes moved over the scans. "I'm not too sure."

"Whoa. Wait a minute. Did we just enter a parallel dimension? Or did you just tell me 'I don't know?'" Shepard quipped in disbelief.

"I've never seen anything like it, Commander."

"You did!" Shepard's grin was playful, but her tone was serious.

"Commander!" Chakwas warned.

She knew the officer's displeasure with the phrase "I don't know," and Shepard had never heard it from the doctor. Though the commander's seemingly quick return to something akin to her normal behavior was a plus, the doctor had been up too long to play along.

"Okay, okay, Doc. What do you want to know?" Shepard relented, sipping her water.

"How you are feeling?"

"Tired, mainly. Kinda sore," she added, rolling her left shoulder-both women knew it was the site of an old, vicious injury.

Chakwas' eyes narrowed on the petite blonde. "That's it?"

"Nothing a shower, some grub, and a bunk won't cure I'm sure." Shepard stretched her head slowly from side to side. "Okay, a little stiff too." She looked around for a moment. "What the hell happened down there?" she asked, mostly to her lieutenant.

"I screwed up. Got to close to the device. You had to push me out of the way."

Commander Shepard shrugged. "Eh. It happens."

"I knew better," he argued, taking a step toward his squad leader. "I should have followed protocol. Active, unknown alien technology," he muttered the last, shaking his head.

"Hey," she said sharply, slapping her hand on the cover of the mattress to make the sound more striking. But it garnered the desired effect-Alenko went silent and his eyes shot to the commander's. "You had no way of knowing what would happen." She stared at him for a long moment, and when she nodded at him once, he mimicked it. Then Shepard turned and winked at the doctor. "Besides the doctor loves having me as a patient. It probably made her whole cruise."

Chakwas scoffed and shook her head at the blonde. The corners of the Lieutenant's mouth turned upward just a hair, but made no reply or further arguments. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on her part, but to the doctor it looked as if the exchange might have relieved some of what she'd seen earlier.

"Indeed," Chakwas replied incredulously.

Shepard moved to slide off the edge of the table and Alenko and Chakwas darted forward to stop her. "So, I'm free to go," Shepard stated, there wasn't even a trace of a question in the XO's voice.

"Not yet."

The glare was a challenge. One that Chakwas would not back down from. She didn't care how much Shepard wasn't keen on doctors, hospitals, and medical bays, despite it being her father's chosen profession. Or maybe it was because of it.. Both women knew that Shepard was aware that her release would be based on the doctor's opinion of her condition, not the soldier's own appraisal.

"How long?"

"As long as it takes, Commander," Chakwas stated with the trace of a triumphant smile on her lips.

Thankfully, when the captain came in, he reinforced the doctor's prerogative on the issue, which set Shepard in bit of a sour mood. When Chakwas returned to medical, Shepard was sitting on the bed with her feet tucked up, her arms loosely resting on her knees. She didn't look relaxed, which seemed to be what the lieutenant commander was going for with the nonchalant pose. The tension was clear in her brow and the tightness of her lips. Only rarely were doctors on anyone's need-to-know list, and Karin knew not to even wonder what might have Shepard so on edge, but she did know a way to address it.

With a quick swipe over Shepard's bared upper arm, Chakwas injected her. "You need to relax, Commander. We'll see how the scans are in the morning. Just take it easy right now. This will help."

"What'd you gi…"

Knowing her smile contained a note of wickedness, Chakwas tried to bite it back. Shepard was the worst patient she'd ever had-fought her every step of the way during her recovery on Elysium. It was not the reaction she would have expected from the child of an Alliance doctor. Then when the brass had all but ordered the operator's release, Chakwas got to regularly repair new damage to wounds that could have healed better or completely if the officers up the chain of command had just given Shepard the two additional days the doctor had requested. The doctor knew who Shepard was before the woman appeared on her trauma table. She'd also heard about what she'd done just prior to arriving on the same.

The doctor admired the other woman. Felt a connection to her. They were both dedicated to their work and the Alliance. And in their own ways, they were both as stubborn about the same. As much as Shepard wanted to get back to her own work; Chakwas wasn't going to let the officer run roughshod over her, because the doctor's work was just as vital, just as important. Normally, she wouldn't drug her patients to garner their cooperation, but Nyx Shepard was a special case.


	6. Coping Strategies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the loss of Corporal Jenkins much of the crew, including Shepard and Alenko, are trying to come to terms with the loss, though the two officers are trying to find ways to deal with other demons. The commander is feeling the effects from the beacon and trying to find a way to combat the near constant memory of the encounter with the device on Eden Prime as the Normandy makes its way to the Citadel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acknowledgements: I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers-xforeverquotex and my paramour. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece.

**FWN: 06 Coping Strategies**

**i.**

* * *

 

Her eyes popped open as she bolted upright in the bunk. With a glance around at the familiar surroundings, Nyx collapsed back onto the pillow. She laid there for a moment staring at the underside of the bunk above her for a moment, before she slid to a reclining position that allowed her to lean her head against the bulkhead. The vibration of the engine sometimes helped her refocus herself. But it wasn't working this time, in part because the female officers' quarters were too far from the drive core for it to really resonate through her skull. The effectiveness was highly limited, because whatever had happened on Eden Prime had completely scrambled her head.

The images from the beacon would flash in her head randomly, along with errant memories, voices ranging from whispers to the loud piercing screech she'd heard after pushing the lieutenant out of the way. It was a disturbing occurrence. When she tried to sleep, it too often felt like she was being grabbed again. The tension would grip her body and she'd feel helpless again, eyes open staring up at the reddening sky over Eden Prime, seeing nothing but shocking images of death and destruction. She shook her head again. Then jumped out of the bed.

"This is ridiculous," she told herself in the silent darkness. The other female officers that shared the space were either on duty, or elsewhere.  _Maybe they are just tired of you mumbling in your sleep_ , she thought.  _You're cracking up, Shepard. Come on. Lock it down. Can't believe you're going to let yourself get beaten by some goddamn green light._ The old trick worked, at least long enough for her to slip on a pair of sweatpants, a tank top, and tennis shoes.

"Hell with this. I know a way around sleeplessness."

She was in the gym within five minutes after the screeching had cut through her brain and broken her fitful sleep. Tightening the strap of the second of her pair of heavy bag boxing gloves, Shepard stepped through the door with her eyes on her hands. All noise stopped, signaling that she wasn't alone. Head still bent toward her hands, her eyes moved around the room quickly.  _Great_. She hadn't planned on the entire marine detail being present. But then they were probably all struggling under some of the same strain that was making it hard for her to sleep.

_What the hell time is it anyway?_  A twist of her wrist told her it was 0628, later than she initially thought. With a nod she made a beeline for the heavy bag. Within three punches, company had made their way over. She realized she felt way too much relief when it was Corporal Crosby that grabbed the bag to steady it.

Shepard sensed what was coming; it was a conversation she'd had more times in her career than she would care to admit. This time it took longer than she expected. Crosby had been mirroring her movements, keeping the heavy bag between the two of them as she pummeled it.

"You doin' all right, L-C?" he asked, looking at her feet which were moving lightly as she bounced slightly on the balls of her feet.

"I'm doin'," she offered. Shepard stopped and grabbed the bag, looking up at him. "You?"

His eyes met hers, but his voice seemed to shrink. "Not sure, ma'am."

"Yep. I've been there."

"I just… I mean. I feel bad about Jenkins." He shrugged and looked away. "But I'm kind of glad I wasn't on the ground."

Her hand squeezed his shoulder and he looked at her again. "We've all felt like that at one time or another. Or wished we hadn't been in the thick of it."

Crosby nodded. "But he was my friend."

"I know. Them being a friend or someone new or a veteran doesn't change the facts or the feelings. And it's okay to be glad you're alive, even if you're mourning someone who didn't make it. It doesn't make you a monster. Plus," her volume rose slightly, "it helps a little that wherever Jenkins is he's giving them hell. And probably taking a few unscheduled nosedives."

"That was AWESOME!" the group of marines yelled in unison, responding as she'd hoped.

Their conversation started something that continued for nearly half an hour. The laughter resounded in the little room and she spotted Alenko across the gym. The two officers mostly sat back on their respective sides of the room and observed the marines and one another silently. Shepard could see it. Alenko still blamed himself, even though she'd tried to relieve the guilt she'd seen crop up in the medbay. Biting her bottom lip, Nyx knew she'd have to have a talk with him to clear the issue from the board.

Though she knew it was a double-edged sword.  _How do you convince someone to do something you yourself haven't managed to accomplish?_  She looked over at the heavy bag considering that very question. She'd missed the drones that cost Jenkins his life. She hadn't been at the rally point in time to stop Nihlus' death. Her own guilt from Eden Prime gnawed at her. No path came to her; she wasn't sure how to push Kaidan out of his guilt while she still wallowed in her own.

As Niveda, Crosby, and McMillan left she tipped her chin at them and offered a quick wink. "Take it easy, marines," she offered honestly.

Alenko hadn't moved though. He was still leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Just staring at her for a few minutes before he straightened and walked toward her.

"You doing all right, ma'am?"

"Yeah, just going over it all." Shepard shifted to the edge of the table, leaning rather than sitting, feeling a sudden need for mobility. "How're you?" she asked.

"Truthfully? Feeling like I should be busted down to private," he said as he stopped several feet from her and shook his head at his boots.

"If they actually did that, I'd still be one," she replied with a little less weight in her voice, trying to lighten up the situation.

His eyes were on her again, the stoic seriousness returning. "I don't know what I was thinking Shepard. I know better. Walking toward an active unknown device. So stupid," he murmured the last part to himself before redirecting his words to her. "I can't believe I put you in that spot."

Shepard stepped forward and set her hand on his arm. "No. That's the spot I'm supposed to be in. I'm the squad leader. You didn't put me there. I did. I take care of  _my people_ , Alenko… Most of them," she admitted lowly. She sighed heavily. "I just wish I could have gotten Jenkins home."

"There was nothing for that, Shepard," he replied quickly as she started pacing.

_Had he seen it? Had anyone else?_  She asked herself in response to his quick reply to her own guilt.  _No, surely not, though…_  Shepard realized that with the distraction of the beacon's brain scrambling she might not be her usual cagey and barely readable self.  _Or maybe, he can just read you_. She shook away that thought. It wasn't a comfortable one for her.

Alenko was part of her team, so at least professionally he should be able to read her, and on Eden Prime he had. Even some of her unspoken and undirected cues were picked up on by the sentinel. But beyond the battlefield there were few people that could read Nyx successfully-her father, her best friends-Lin and Caz, Chief Dave Jensen, and Anderson, more often than she allowed it. Shepard preferred distance, it had always been safer. But this officer was threatening that, and it scared the hell out of her.

"I know. I know. I just hate losing people. And he was good. Best shot I've seen since my old chief. And he could take anything I dished out, wanted to be pushed. That kid, had something rare."

The commander had played the whole thing over and over again, in her head and from the armor recordings. No one had a line of sight on those drones before they downed Jenkins, and even he hadn't seen them. Like the rest of the crew he was looking for an enemy on foot, not expecting geth drones. Hell, they hadn't been expecting geth at all. There was no way that part of the craziness on Eden Prime could have been anticipated.

Suddenly she smiled. "That kid. Popping up after that drop. He scared the hell out of Chakwas. But he loved it."

Kaidan's eyes shone as he smiled. "Yeah, he asked me to toss him around a few times after that. He wasn't intimidated by it at all."

"That was awesome!" Kaidan couldn't help but laugh at her as she stood there, hands thrust in the air triumphantly. The smile was reminiscent of that afternoon, but there was sadness in her eyes.

His laughter quieted and he looked at her seriously for a moment before he took a step toward her, his eyes locked on hers. "He admired you. He was so jazzed about this assignment, because it was a chance to work with the best. His words," Alenko assured. He shifted slightly before continuing. "Jenkins told me once, before we put out, that his first squad had run a training exercise with your team back on Luna. He said that being killed by you was the most exciting moment of his career to date."

She let her head fall back in a bright laugh. Shepard actually remembered that, and couldn't help but smile at the idea that it had made that type of impression. "Jenkins was not standard issue. That's for damn sure," she said.

Looking over at her Alenko finally asked, "Is that how you do it? How you get past this…?"

"Feeling that you failed them somehow?" She tilted her head as she looked at him.

"Yeah," he said a sudden smallness to his voice.

She shrugged. "Only way I know." She was silent for a moment before she continued. "Just remember and keep going. Do better the next time." She paused and looked down at her hands. "It never leaves. It's always there in the background. But you can't dwell. You just have to … learn from it. Move onward."

He nodded a few times. The conversation was suddenly returning to the weighty side. "Are we going to bring the Chief into the fold?"

"We'll see how it works out. But if she's willing to step up, it won't be official until after we hit the Citadel. Plus, Anderson likes her. Your recommendation was compelling. And she's got a good head on her shoulders. I think she'd be an asset and she seems like she could be a good fit."

With a glance at her wrist Shepard decided she desperately needed coffee. "I think I'm going to…"

Kaidan didn't say anything. The look in his eyes told her he was trying to make a decision, and there was a little niggling part of her that didn't want to be there when he made it. Mainly because she couldn't be entirely certain of how she might respond to him.

"It won't get easier," she cautioned as she slipped past him on her way to the door. It would be the last thing she said to him on that topic. He didn't respond, and the commander happily escaped to find a hot shower and some even hotter coffee.

**ii.**

* * *

 

Eden Prime scrambled things for both the officers on the ground there. The whole ship whispered about Shepard skulking the corridors at all hours and the lack of sleep was showing in the tension in her brow and the darkening circles around her eyes. But Kaidan, though he hadn't had his brain scrambled by the device, suffered from his own brand of disturbing upheaval, though it was entirely psychological, he knew.

When she'd entered the gym, he had been running, trying just to clear his head-to get  _her_  out of his head for a few minutes. He spent the next few hours trying to not watch her. At one point he'd even tried running with his eyes closed, but it did strange things to his balance.

Everything had been fine, workable even, until she threw him clear of that beacon. Since seeing her on the bridge he'd been able to compartmentalize it all, or so he thought. He'd almost convinced himself that he had his attraction to and fascination with her locked down and walled up. Until that smirk, that is. It was nothing more than a self-assured little gesture, a look that told him she had his back. And he'd have been fine with that if not for everything else that happened in that short span of a handful of minutes.

Her hanging there like a puppet on a string tore at him. It all haunted him still, especially the rush of emotions: guilt, fear, concern, and regret. The regret was the hardest one to reconcile. And it was the last to hit him, when she looked up at him and smiled. It was something more than he'd seen since they set out; it was something seemingly left over from that night, that one night before they were both aware, a moment when she didn't look at him like her lieutenant. At least that was how it felt in that instant, that seconds before she lost consciousness. That look haunted him; the truth in it burned into his brain and made his head throb.

It all piled onto him heavily as he'd carried her back to the ship, he'd hear the pitiful whispers in the back of his head chiding him for doing nothing. Shepard had fascinated him from the get go. Working with her hadn't dimmed anything, though he'd hoped it might, rather it just served to vivify his interest. There was something in her that he just wanted to be around, and her gravitational pull was like nothing he'd known the like of.

And with her recovery, everything else seemed to be falling away. The fear broke as soon as she'd hit the deck, and disappeared entirely when the doctor gave her a clean bill of health. The guilt lingered despite her recovery. Even after she'd forgiven him immediately, he still couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for the residual suffering. His concern was no longer urgent and immediate. But the regret. The regret seemed to be pressing at him from all sides. So much so that he'd considered declaring his interest, with the hopes she'd slam the door on that voice in his head that suggested doing away with caution. That intention would then be quickly halted by the realization that his place as part of this crew could immediately come to an end if he did.

And that was one thing he couldn't abide. Shepard was enticing in too many ways, he realized, but he wasn't willing to toss his career out the window for anyone. Even  _the_  Commander Shepard. So when the thought cropped up again as they stood near the door of the gym with her he considered it once more. Finally, opting for silence, he watched her slip into the cargo bay.

Kaidan closed his eyes and leaned his head back.  _This is going to be a long cruise_.  _Maybe if you just stay out of the way…_  He shook off the idea. No one could avoid Shepard, even less so if they wanted to. She had joked about Nihlus being everywhere, but she was the exact same way. Turn around and she was right there.

He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, turning away from the door and catching sight of himself in the mirror. "Wall it back up. Just get it under control," he ordered quietly. He knew that wasn't going to cut it. Then he eyed his reflection rather harshly. "Lock it up, Marine."

_Just keep telling yourself that,_  a chiding inner voice replied.

**iii.**

* * *

 

Ensign Hawthorne slipped out of the pilot's seat as he approached the cockpit. His distinctive walk always gave him away, but when he noticed the black-clad leg dangling over the co-pilot's seat he straightened up a little and tried to disguise the limp. Moreau had no desire to have  _that_  conversation with anyone on the ship, though in his opinion too many people knew already. In fact part of him was a little surprised that Shepard hadn't mentioned it. But then she wasn't really the type for mentioning things like that.

Now if he'd missed a button, forgotten to zip his jumpsuit on the way out of the john, or sleep walked into the women's head-those she would mention, loudly enough that he wouldn't be able to forget it. But she was coy and way too sly. "What are you doing in my cockpit, Commander?"

"Come again?" she asked, tilting the datapad in her left hand out of her line of sight to offer him a challenging glare.

"You heard me," he replied solidly as he tried to slide into the chair as elegantly as possible.

"Last I checked this was Anderson's bird, thus his cockpit. And since I'm officer of the watch, technically, it's my cockpit."

"You just really like saying that word don't you?"

She laughed lightly and rested the datapad on her thigh as she stretched.

"How long have you been at it?" There were at least three feeds up on the co-pilot's console and she had two datapads in her lap and at least two more in the seat next to her. He was willing to bet that if she opened her 'tool there would be at least two more files open there, if not more.

Shepard leaned her head back and glanced up at her wrist. "Just shy of six hours," she yawned.

"Damn, Shepard." He leaned toward her console and felt his eyes widen when he saw the image on the feed.

That massive mother ship from Eden Prime, but that wasn't the image from the transmission. That was from Shepard's armor feed. He remembered seeing it while they were on the ground. The captain had spent most of that mission standing over the pilot's shoulder watching the armor feeds from the two officers, in between concentrated bouts of pacing and muttered expletives.

The sight of that thing still creeped him out. He'd seen some strange vessels. Hell, he'd flown some strange vessels. But that ship. There was something off about it. It just didn't look like a ship. Even geth-designed ships according to the data he'd seen still looked like flying vessels. That thing looked like some alien crossbred spider-beetle, and he hated bugs-some people called it an irrational fear of them, but he just didn't like them. Bug or not, that ship garnered the same reaction as a beetle crawling across his boot-it made his skin crawl and he just wanted to squash it.

"So, what precisely are you doing?"

She looked up with a pensive look on her face as if trying to find a way to define precisely why she had all this information in the helm. "Let's call it research. I want to know what the hell happened down there."

"Why's that up?" he asked, indicating the video feed from Alenko's suit. It was keyed to a point when Williams was still holding him back, trying to keep him from grabbing the commander.

"I didn't know what was happening, outside of my own head," she offered, tapping that feed closed.

His eyes kept wandering back to the frozen image of the mother ship. "That thing's not geth. I can tell you that."

"I know."

He looked over and smirked at her.

"I found your research," she replied.

"You hacked my files? I feel so violated."

"Seriously?" she said with a telling lift of her eyebrow. "Plus, it wasn't really like it was hacking," she admitted with a smirk as she picked up one of the datapads in her lap. "More like a lucky guess… on the first try." Her giggle was deep and dark.

Joker shook his head for a moment trying to glare at her. But he knew she was right, and couldn't help but reply to her laughter with his own.

"You should try something trickier, like 'I'm sure the gear was down.'"

"Didn't I read that in that report you wrote after your second crash?"

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped, but the smile took anything but the mirth out of her look.

"I mean come on, Commander. It's like they tell you on the first day of flight school: flying isn't dangerous; crashing is dangerous."

"So is making fun of your X-O," she offered leaning forward and swatting his arm playfully with a datapad before she narrowed her eyes at him. "And me without my gun. Damn flyboys anyway."

"Ah, you know I'm your favorite person on the ship. I take you where the action is," he smirked and winked at her.

She got out of the chair she was draped in more easily than he imagined she could. "Well, you do have a point there, Joker. Hope you don't mind. I'm going to abandon you to your helm."

"No worries, Shepard. I got this."

"Good to know, Lieutenant," she replied, gathering her devices from the chair.

After she was gone, he noticed she'd left the console window up and moved to close them. The image of the ship he closed first, but the other he didn't recognize and replayed it. It took him too long to realize what the recording was. Nothing but terrain, but when it stuttered from side to side slightly before the frame was filled with nothing but the pink and red clouds above Eden Prime that day Joker realized he'd just seen the last minute and a half of Corporal Jenkins' life.

"Fuck me," he murmured tapping it closed. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead. "Damnit, Shepard." He couldn't decide what she could have wanted with that recording, and part of him really wished she'd had the forethought to close it. Though he knew that after six hours of digging she probably just forgot it was among the other information. Glancing over his shoulder, Jeff looked down the bridge and saw her talking with Pressly. She still looked tired and it concerned him, but he wasn't the only one worried.

**iv.**

* * *

 

The exhaustion technique wasn't working out so well for the commander, nor was the investigation into the origin of the mother ship. She'd abandoned the former about four hours earlier and the latter not more than an hour ago. Though the little relief usually offered by the familiar hideaway was overwhelmed by the achy soreness in her muscles and the throb in her head, the persistent sensations combined with vivid recollections served to keep Eden Prime at the forefront of her mind. Every time she relived it she could feel her muscles tensing again and it just made her more tired.

Part of her was hoping that figuring out anything might help her sort it all out. She knew she'd hit a wall soon-one that would have her in the medbay again having to admit to Chakwas that she hadn't really slept more than six hours in the last seventy-two. It wasn't the first time, but she also knew it wasn't the best call.

Usually wearing herself out with physical activity would get her jazzed for a while, but eventually the high would wear off, and if she pushed hard enough she could get to the point that she could pass out. But she hadn't reached it yet, though she felt she was close. Before she had hidden out in the Obs, she had actually felt like she had fallen asleep, only to have the images flood back and her body tense awake.

That's why she was going over the after action reports of the ground team. Once she completed the official report on the mission on Eden Prime, Shepard had turned out the lights in her little hideout and just listened to the ship for a while. She just needed to relax, see if she could get everything to fall back into place. She couldn't be sure what the hell happened down there after they found that damned beacon. But she was intensely feeling the insanity of the entire mission.

Waking up in the medbay was bad enough. Replaying it all in her head she saw the flaws, the misses-Jenkins, Nihlus, Saren, and Alenko getting pulled toward that beacon. But what kept replaying was seeing that beacon all lit up, the hum that shook in her bones. Seeing it pulling one of her people-pulling  _him_.

She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes as she felt the subtle vibration in the wall and heard it reverberate in her skull. She knew she would have pushed either of them clear; like she'd told him in the gym it was her place to be there for her people, to make sure they came home. But Shepard knew there was more to it, even if no one else did. To most of them it would seem on par with the stories about her. That was just what the commander did for her people; she would put her ass on the line for any of them. But in the heat of it, it was about  _him_ , not just one of her crew.

_Just breathe, Nyx_ , she told herself. She tried to blank her mind, as the sound of her breathing mixed with the soft hum of the drive core. It was almost working, then her muscles went rock hard, her nerves tingled, and her bones hummed. The images sped through her mind and she could feel it all again; the sensation was indescribable. It wasn't exactly painful, but there was nothing pleasant about being paralyzed in the grip of that device while something seemed to be playing with her mind, prying into her brain and forcing her to see and feel things she knew but still somehow couldn't wholly grasp. Then there was the screech, alternating in frequency, like someone was trying to talk, trying to tell her something. Shepard just couldn't decipher it and put it all together. She shivered again involuntarily, and then her head turned toward the opening door.

"Commander?" he turned his head once, then twice; it was obvious he was looking for traces of her in the darkness. He reached for the panel that controlled the lights.

"Don't," she said quietly, finally relenting and revealing her presence. She would have preferred he not be so persistent in following whoever's order had led him to seek her out. Company she could handle, even his, but the bright lights she could not at that moment.

He straightened and walked in, letting the door close behind him. The tense stance reminded her of even the professional distance remaining between them. Still for a few moments, he stood there letting his eyes get used to the absence of light. Kaidan didn't seem to see her, even once he was able to barely make out the furniture in the room.

"Captain asked me to inquire about the progress on the mission report. He wants to get it to the Council and Command."

"I think it's on the table there," she offered, gesturing toward the center of the room.

She heard the shuffling then it stopped. His eyes were glued to the screen until he slid his finger across the display. Shepard closed her eyes and let her head hang forward as she heard the sharp sounds of the half dozen shots that first zapped the corporal's shields then finished him.

"Are you doing all right Shepard?" he asked with more concern in his voice than there should have been.

Hearing it just made her own struggle that much more palpable. It made her ask questions and consider things she had no business entertaining. The pad painted his features in an eerie glow, but she could see the pain etched across his face. He'd seen the same type of promise in Jenkins, but had more time to become attached to the young soldier. He was staring in her general direction, though not at her.

"Can't sleep."

The slight curve of his lips in a sympathetic smile prompted her to respond similarly. "Yeah, that seems to be going around. How many hours have you gotten?"

"Six-ish."

He slipped into one of the chairs at the table and gingerly laid the datapad aside.

"You?" she asked.

"Oh I've got you beat, and comparatively I'm well-rested." They both laughed. "Twelve," he replied.

"Damn, L-T."

She shifted and pulled herself out of the dark corner, crouching to snatch up the datapads on the ground around where she'd been communing with the ship. The shift in position made the throb in her head intensify, but it got many times worse when she stood. She couldn't help but wince and set her forehead in her hand as she took a seat opposite him at the table in front of the window.

"I know that look. How long?"

"What? The headache?" she asked.

He nodded.

"I don't know. Can't remember when it started."

"Light makes it worse?"

"Yeah, but it's not that. I got lucky. Never had migraines," she replied.

"And you've had your brain scrambled by a lot of alien devices?"

"More than you'd think," she laughed lightly. His smile caught her off guard and she realized how easy it seemed in that moment. Sitting there in the dark, they were just people, two flawed humans struggling through shared experiences.

"So, what's with the recording?"

"I wanted to know." She stopped and looked out the window for a long moment. "I needed to know if he saw it coming."

A part of her knew Alenko wouldn't say anything. There was not much that could be said in response and those few things that some might say, he wouldn't say.

"He didn't," Shepard revealed looking back at him.

He ran a hand through his hair then met her gaze. "I know. I checked the recordings too. None of us had a line on them until he was down."

Neither of them looked away. It was like they were both making silent assessments of one another and the situation.

"And you came in here for a report," she finally recalled, leaning forward. He just watched her grab and check three datapads before she found the one containing all the reports from Eden Prime. "That way the captain won't be all grrr… argh."

He laughed vibrantly. "Somehow I'm not sure that's in his vocabulary."

"Oh yeah? Ask Joker. I'm sure he's seen that side of Anderson." Her fingers tapped against the handle of her empty mug.

"I do believe someone just made a fresh pot of coffee," Alenko offered with a glance toward her mug.

Shepard couldn't help but smile. That was the best news she'd heard in hours. "C'mon, my treat."

He chuckled as he followed her across the crew deck. She grabbed his mug, emblazoned with SL-1 on the handle, and filled them both. As she dosed hers with sugar only she noticed he took his black.

"Brave."

"What?" he asked.

"Not many people I know have the stomach for Navy coffee straight."

He shrugged slightly as he took a drink. "I was raised on the stuff."

"Ah," she replied with a nod.

"Weren't you? Didn't you say this was the family business?"

She crossed to a table and took a seat. "Something like that. Been on ships and stations my whole life."

"Then you should be used to this sludge," he said with a smile as he took a sip. She merely shrugged in response. "That had to be rough though. Growing up on cruise all the time."

"Not really. But that's the thing," she said, setting her mug down on the table and looking up at him, gesturing as she spoke. "It's just what I knew, so it didn't seem tough to me. I mean it was weird whenever we were station side, because those kids didn't get it. But for me and my friends, it was totally normal to get physics tutoring from the guys in engineering and military history lessons from the old salty vets with the freaky scars. To 'run away' to the cargo bay and make forts on top of the stacks of crates. It's just what it was.

"Hell, to me tough is being stuck in one place," she added, leaning back and lacing her fingers over her belt. "I couldn't imagine it. Hell, I'll probably get stir crazy here in a week or so. Haven't been on the same ship this long in years."

He shook his head and smiled. "Really?"

"Nope." She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, calculating. "I guess it's got to have been almost five years since I was in one place for more than six weeks. And I was only there that long because there was a lot to do." The smile was mischievous and telling. She knew he wouldn't ask for clarification because she'd attempted to make it clear that more information wasn't going to be forthcoming.

"Perspective, huh?" Alenko replied, watching her carefully as they spoke.

"Indeed." Her hand found the handle of her mug again as the attention of both officers shifted from one another by the approach of a third person.

The footsteps were followed by a sharp click that made Shepard's eyes crinkle just the littlest bit. The XO glanced toward the Gunnery Chief who was standing to her left at attention. "At ease, Williams. Something I can do for you?"

"Just wanted to thank you, ma'am."

Shepard sipped at her coffee and looked over at the lieutenant when she replied, "Nothing to thank me for, Chief."

"The Captain just told me that he was requesting I be reassigned to your unit. I thought…"

The commander stood and even though she was looking up at the other woman, it was still obvious that Williams was awestruck and looking up to the smaller female. "Any recommendations made were based on your performance on Eden Prime. You fell in with a fire team you didn't know, performing admirably in an unexpected and highly dangerous situation. The only person here deserving of thanks is you, Chief" Shepard offered her hand and Williams face bore a mix of confusion and pride as she shook the commander's hand.

"Even so. Thank you ma'am, sir." She saluted again.

"Welcome to the team, Chief," Alenko added.

Williams nodded quickly and walked away from the table grinning.

Once he was sure she was out of earshot, Kaidan looked over at Shepard who was sitting again. "Why did that sound like you didn't recommend her?"

"She needed to know she's here because she deserves it, not because you and I wrote memos."

Shepard raised her mug to her lips again as the intercom came to life with Joker's voice, "On relay approach."

"That's my cue," Alenko stated, quickly finishing off his coffee and standing. Shepard stayed on the crew deck and polished off her own mug before she made her way to the bridge.

"Shepard's not like any X-O I've ever had," Joker noted to the officer to his right.

"She's just got a different perspective than you're used to. Than anyone's used to," Kaidan muttered the latter.

"She can be spooky. Like she can see right through a person."

Alenko shrugged. "Well, the commander does see things most people miss. And it can be unnerving."

"That's putting it lightly." Joker's hands raced across his board periodically as he brought the  _Normandy_  onto an approach vector for the relay. "I don't know. I can't reconcile what I've heard with what I've seen. She's supposed to be this bad ass war hero with an uncalculated ability for destruction on a grand scale. Did you know she carries a book in her pocket, like a real life actual from a museum book?"

"Give her a chance. Shepard's squared away."

The heavy footfalls behind the commander drew all their attention. "We there yet, Commander?" Williams asked excitedly.

"Nope. Coming up on the relay it looks like," Shepard replied with a glance at Joker who shrank from her gaze. As the pilot faced his console, the commander noticed the nervous frown paint Alenko's face for a moment. Neither of them had been aware she was there until Williams walked up, and neither of them seemed particularly comfortable with it.


	7. Making Contacts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first visit to the Citadel, by the members of the Normandy's ground team from the Eden Prime mission, includes some unexpected sightseeing along the way. It also gets the team embroiled in a political situation that had not expected, which leads them to new allies and into fights with assassins, mercenaries, and a crime lord.

 

**07 Making Contacts**

  
****i.** **

* * *

In her career, there had been three occasions when she had set foot on the Citadel, and in none of those had she gotten much farther than the docks, or so she'd told the Williams, Alenko, and Moreau on approach to the station. The human Ambassador Donnel Udina had not yet been ready for them when they arrived, but when the time neared for Anderson's appointment with the man the team prepared to meet him on the Presidium.

Shepard was waiting for her team on the gangway, leaning nonchalantly on a bar that ran the width of the platform, staring at a vibrant green bug-like creature busily taping away at a terminal, not far from the airlock. "What the hell is that?" she asked without shifting her gaze, when she heard their approach.

Alenko didn't miss a beat. "It's called a Keeper," he began as she crossed to him. He read out the highlights of the information he'd pulled up for Williams' sake while shifting his arm slightly as Shepard looked over his shoulder.

When she reached forward and tapped active a second file he'd pulled up he turned and found her leaning over his shoulder. The proximity made his pulse quicken and when her eyes met his, he felt a little unsteady. Kaidan reminded himself that he needed to maintain a professional distance from her, physically and mentally, even though all he could think about in that moment was precisely how close she was to him. It filled his mind with all the questions and the internal battle he'd been struggling with since he first saw the commander on the bridge when the Normandy put out, which stood in stark opposition to the very first time he saw her.

"Huh. Interesting. Enough xenobiology for one day." She glanced at the insectoid again, eyes moving over the target in a disconcerting way. To Alenko it looked like she was looking for a chink, a weak spot to strike if ever the need arose. She'd looked at him like that before their little biotic display in the hold, sizing him up like she was measuring him for a body bag.

Williams narrowed her inspecting gaze at her teammate. "You always do that, L-T?"

"What?" his reply was clipped, wondering to what she was referring.

"Go all Encyclopedia Brown on things."

"Hey, better to have intel than to go running around blind. Don't you think, Chief?" Shepard suggested from an angle she knew the soldier would understand. The commander knew the lieutenant came at it from the side of a scientist or an engineer, and besides, she had her own tendencies to go in search of information so she wouldn't judge. For her, it didn't matter how you came at things, just that you got there.

"Well, when you put it that way. Keep at it, sir," Williams said to the lieutenant.

"Time to meet the bulldog," Shepard sighed moving to the elevator. "God, I hate politicians."

"I hear that, X-O," Williams agreed.

Though Udina had been ready for them this time, the Council had not been, but thankfully the marines hadn't had to spend those three hours waiting with the human ambassador. Only Anderson had to endure that particular brand of torture. But after finally exiting the Council Chambers at the top of the Citadel Tower, Shepard was reminded how much she truly preferred her own kind-people of action and deeds.

To say the least Nyx was angry, irritated, and a feeling a little vengeful, and she was certain it was clearly evident despite her usual efforts to keep her emotions under wraps. From their first meeting Udina had treated her like something he had accidently stepped in and couldn't get off his shoe. He didn't know how to deal with her and she made him uncomfortable, which was obvious in the way he refused to meet her gaze. The Council acted in a fashion she had expected: placating, spineless, protective of their asset, and unwilling to take the human evidence at face value. They dismissed everything from Eden Prime and stood with their Spectre.

Then there was Saren Arterius.  _Arrogant. Superior. Cold-blooded_. Everything he did and said in that meeting made Shepard even more certain of his guilt. In his accusations against the humans, against Anderson, and against her, she could read his attempts to cover his tracks. He mentioned acquiring Nihlus' files, which meant that he knew more about the commander than she wanted him to know. But none of any of that mattered, Shepard knew. For her it all came down to a handful of things that culminated into the fact that she felt she owed Nihlus Kryik. He had put his faith in her. In her mind she had failed him on Eden Prime, but Shepard was determined to do whatever she could to not let his murderer skulk back into the shadows. She was going to expose Saren.

Udina had growled, while Anderson consoled and suggested options, but when it came right down to it this was not her specialty. Nyx leaned back against the wall of the elevator and rubbed at her temples, just thinking about it made her cringe. Sure she could recon a target with the best of them, and while this wasn't the first time she'd ever gone spelunking for her own intel, at least in the past she had leads to go on and assets in place. Right now she was stuck between trying to pry information out of a drunken human C-Sec officer who was cruising toward forced resignation or a shrewd Volus financier with blatant ties to a galactic information trader, known only as the Shadow Broker. It was not a win-win situation, in fact, she was fairly certain that either of these sources could fail to produce anything, especially if she approached them incorrectly or bent them the wrong way.

Apparently massaging her head prompted some kind of synaptic response. She slid open her omnitool and went straight for a resource she hadn't tapped in years. Surprised the extranet site still existed at all, she took a blind shot in the dark and scrawled a cryptic message that sounded too much like a personal ad. "SF-Human seeks M-same for romantic strolls along Presidium Fountain." She stopped for a minute and stared at the ceiling looking for the perfect phrase. "Must enjoy ghost stories, turian demolitions tactics, and quarian history. We can talk about traditional Anhurri pilgrimages through the Amun system and go Dovekie watching in the Arctic."

Shepard was totally unaware that she'd been muttering what she was writing, at least not until the chief mentioned it.

"What the hell are you typing Shepard?" Williams asked, looking over her shoulder.

"Message for an old friend."

"What's a Dovekie?"

"It's a small Arctic sea bird. Black body and head, white chest. They call it the Little Auk. They were believed to be an example of convergent evolution," Shepard said absently. As a wistful smile played across her face at the thought of her best friend and she laughed lightly. With a glance at her teammates, she realized they were both looking at her the way she and Williams had looked at Alenko earlier when he dug up a lengthy textbook answer to the commander's question about Keepers.

The last phrase, about convergent evolution, had made her smile widen just a bit too much. That's what Caz had said about the two of them-he and Shepard. They were so alike, almost identical in ideas and behaviors. He'd always said the two of them were prime examples of convergent evolution because they developed those qualities separately. It was the thought of her childhood friend that made her smile; but while the smile remained a certain and palpable sadness darkened in her eyes. She hadn't heard from him in years, not even a blip. Shepard just hoped he was still around to respond to this call for assistance.

Calev Zingel, Caz, had proven a vital intelligence asset for her in the past. But she never reached out to him. He had always contacted her. Sometimes with information about what she was currently working on, or about something he needed her to look into. Despite this Calev made sure that she knew how to contact him if she needed it, though in the past, all her messages posted on that site had been responses to his inquiries or notes of thanks for his intel.

"And I'm guessing this friend can help?" Ashley asked, getting back on topic.

"That's the hope, but we'll have to wait and see," the commander replied with a shrug as they walked out of the elevator and back onto the Presidium.

 

  
****ii.** **

* * *

Crossing the lakes, Shepard walked with purpose straight toward the financial districts, the trio of marines slipped through a marked, but unguarded, door unbidden. The greeting suggested they were expected. "Ah, Lieutenant Commander Shepard," the little round suited banker said as he rolled out of his chair. "I haven't heard your name this much since that little debacle on Anhur."

Kaidan noticed the commander's shoulders tense. He didn't remember anything about Anhur in her file and he quickly realized what was happening. Barla Von was demonstrating the type of information he had at his disposal, trying to set the hierarchy for the encounter. Her response was seamless. Commander Shepard set her hand on her beaten up little Edge pistol. It was a calculated move. If his information was as good as his previous declaration suggested, Shepard would hear him out. And everyone in that room knew she wouldn't need to ever draw that pistol, if push came to shove.

"I do prefer to keep a low profile," she responded coolly.

The strained greeting seemed to set the tone for the rest of the encounter. It was like watching a game of chess, each carefully moving across the field of play placing and moving pieces until it finally ended in a stalemate.

The volus walked the length of his desk then casually hopped into his chair. "I'm telling you this, because I was told to tell you this. The motives of which are not my concern. Speak to the krogan, or do not speak to the krogan. The information is yours to do with as you will. Good day, Commander."

For a moment, Alenko just watched them; it was one of the strangest encounters Kaidan could remember having in his life, and Shepard just seemed to take it all in stride. He hadn't even been part of the conversation and still felt a little tense about the fact that the Shadow Broker knew her, hell, he probably knew them all on sight. That thought didn't help the tension building in his head.

The volus had given them nothing more than a breadcrumb. But Shepard didn't seem perturbed by it when she asked her team, "Shiesty little guy isn't he?"

"This doesn't bother you, Commander?" Williams responded after the commander gave them leave to discuss it, and Alenko could see the tightness in her features as well.

"Barla Von doesn't scare me, pop his little bubble and he goes boom," she stated in a detached voice that made it clear her mind was elsewhere.

"We just came out of the Council's Chambers and he already had information prepared for you. He knew you were coming," Alenko stated, his voice holding an edge.

"Not the first guy to have really good resources," she said with a sideways glance at him. She stopped and spun, facing her subordinates who halted with her. She took a deep breath and her eyes moved between them, studying them both. "We are dealing with a Spectre. Someone with a lot of power, authority, and probably resources, given how long he's been at this. There is nothing normal about what I am being ordered to do. But I'll put this to you straight. I'm asking you two if you want to do this with me."

Neither of them answered, though Williams looked over at him when he'd glanced at her. And Alenko realized her question was designed to probe them and their response to the situation.

"If you want to take a powder-"

They both started to speak but stopped when Shepard held up her hand before they did more than inhale.

"You can go back to the ship. This is outside typical operational purview. I understand if you'd rather not get involved in this cloak and dagger type of insanity."

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am," Williams blurted out.

Shepard nodded.

"Fuck that."

"Concur, Commander," Alenko declared a little more subtly.

"Oorah, L-T," Williams replied, bumping his shoulder with hers. "There might be some next level shit going on, but we've got your back."

"Good to know," Shepard said with a relieved little smile. "Going to make a little detour since we're in the neighborhood."

 

  
****iii.** **

* * *

The grin on his face garnered the correct response. The little human jumped back a few inches then leaned forward poking that finger at him again.  _God, what I wouldn't give to just grab it and break it. Leave him writing on the floor crying at his crooked little pointy finger. Fucking uppity humans._  But casting a glance around him, Urdnot Wrex knew that would not be the best choice. The two turians and the trio of humans wouldn't stand much of a chance, though one might walk away from a confrontation if a fight broke out. It was the two asari, the salarian, and another pair of turians up the stairs who would be the ones who'd put an end to it. Or at least draw it out long enough for reinforcements to end it.

Returning his attention to the little man still rambling, the krogan caught the movement in his peripheral vision. Three humans-not Citadel Security- but well armed, well armored, and interested in this little conversation.  _Promising_. He watched them out of the corner of his eye as he mostly ignored the C-Sec officer.  _The little one leads, strange. And the male is following the female-she must have him by the quad. The other looks at her like… a battlemaster. She commands respect and deference from the males and the females alike. Very promising_. He chuckled gruffly as the little human officer poked him; the little pyjak actually deigned to touch him.

The grumbling growl reverberated throughout his body, and his plates began to itch.

"Do you want me to arrest you?" dared the human who had poked him.

The growl became a chortle as he quickly answered, "I want you to  _try_."

A smile, well not a smile, but a slight curve of the lips on the blonde human female told Wrex that she was impressed, or at least bemused by his little display. There was promise in either. And he found himself curious. Not only about the human soldier, but about why she might be so interested in a gruff krogan mercenary being waylaid by C-Sec.

"Just stay away from Fist," the officer ordered shrilly as he took a step back. "And watch yourself while you're on the Citadel. Go on get out of here." There was a lot less vigor in his voice as he and the other officers made their way back up the stairs.

Wrex waved him off and turned toward the trio of soldiers. He allowed his eyes to move over the obvious leader freely. Her reaction told him she was not a stranger to this type of inspection, though her comrades were much less so. The other female bristled and he felt the man flare in response.  _A biotic. Interesting. And they are protective of their leader._ Approval rumbled in his throat. The combination proved formidable and it was a display he could appreciate-her strength and their loyalty suggested she might be someone worth a few moments of his time.

He could feel the smile playing on his lips as she looked him over in a similarly deadly way, though he doubted she could tangle with him, he wouldn't put it to the test in the middle of Citadel Security Headquarters.

"Yes, human?" he said with as much disinterest he could muster.

Her eyes reached his face, she studied the scar his father had given him, then finally spoke. "I'm trying to take down a Spectre." She paused for a moment and gauged his response, he gave her nothing. "Saren Arterius. Barla Von suggested I speak with you."

 _Bold. Just put it all on the table from the get go._ His eyes narrowed on her.  _Why lay it all out so easily? Time? Trust?_

He kept his voice was calm. He wanted to surprise her, show her the true depth of what it was to be krogan. Too few aliens understood more than rage about his people, this one seemed willing to look past his reputation and his species. His explanation was concise and revealing and she didn't seem to form an opinion on him based on his purpose there. So he offered up more-the reason for Fist's disciplining-the betrayal and the quarian asset.

The wisp of a smile played in her eyes, though her face remained stoic.  _So that is what you are looking for, little warrior,_  he said to himself.  _You want to know what I know. Perhaps I'll do you one better._ "Whatever she has is valuable. Supposedly links Saren to the geth. Reports say he paid Fist a small fortune for the little bantam," Wrex added.

"This could be just what we need, Commander," the male said quietly, leaning toward her.

She merely nodded in response before she asked if he was there for the kill and the information. As far as Wrex knew, Fist was the only loose end in all this that needed to be dealt with directly.  _The Broker doesn't want the quarian. Her intel will reach his hands no matter what channel it goes through. He just doesn't want Saren to have exclusive access. The Broker wants the Spectre's hide on his wall_.

Wrex couldn't help but like the gutsy little human. She was pushy and good at leading the conversation, as well as being led.

"What about Vakarian?" the dark-haired female interrupted.

"You know Vakarian?" the krogan asked curiously.

Her associates looked at him with surprise. The leader just raised her eyebrow at him a bit and glanced up at him.

"C-Sec loves when I visit. I've run across him a few times, just never with the right vehicle," he muttered to himself. "Told some big fringed friend of his he had a lead he needed to check on in the wards."

The woman was considering her options. Wrex was fairly certain of the one she'd come to. She was calculating and careful. If she was also as talented as the loyalty of her squad suggested, he could work with that.

"All right. Can you hold off on killing Fist until I can get in touch with Vakarian?" she asked as she shifted her weight to her left foot.

Wrex looked at her, studying her again. "I'll give you twelve hours. Then I kill him my way."

Shepard nodded, to which the krogan smiled rather creepily.

"It seems the enemy of my enemy may be my friend," he said, offering her his hand.

She looked at it a moment, knowing it meant more in this moment than a simple gesture of greeting or agreement. Shepard gripped his hand firmly and looked him squarely in the eye as she replied, "Looks like."

 

  
****iv.** **

* * *

_Twelve hours._ The timer ticked on her datacuff as well as through her mind.  _Twelve hours to find a turian security officer on the hunt and then meet up with a krogan mercenary C-Sec was keeping tabs on_. The tightness in her neck made her shoulders ache-the added stress and her lack of sleep were weighing on her. She could hear it in her own heavier footsteps as the trio moved through the Citadel's lower levels. But she knew not all of her unease could be attributed to Eden Prime and its aftermath.

Following the conversation at the overlook that Williams had detoured for, Nyx's world seemed just off center enough to have her leaning a bit to port again. She'd been able to correct her listing after the reassignment, mostly, but Alenko's comment had her veering off course again. Despite this she did what she always did-regardless of the situation-her job.

She tried to distract herself with the fit of her gauntlet, which seemed off to her; it just felt loose.  _Thankfully it's only the left hand, shouldn't be too big a deal._ It was her offhand, though she was still a decent shot with that one too, but it could mess with the movements she used to control her biotics if she wasn't careful. She was looking at it when she walked out of the red-lit hallway and into the open area outside Chora's Den. It almost proved a fatal distraction.

"Gun!" Williams yelled, drawing her own.

Shepard suddenly found herself on the deck beneath the lieutenant. She gazed up at him. His warm brown eyes met hers for a moment and she saw his concern and more. Then his eyes scanned her quickly before he rolled off her. The weight of him gone her mind returned to the situation and she followed his lead: grabbing cover and flipping the safety off her own sidearm as she drew it.

She tried a familiar trick, but the turians were ready for her-a well-timed warp and an overload set an alarm to off in her ear as her shields went down.

"Goddamn, those guys," Shepard growled as she tucked back behind the wall to give her shields a chance to charge back up.

"I can't get a bead on him, X-O," Williams growled. "Come on, you cagey bastard."

Alenko was even having trouble getting anything to stick. Their enemies' shields were recharging faster than the team could take them down, and the terrain was crap. Everybody had solid cover and the pillars messed with line of sight. Shepard couldn't help but admire whoever had planned this ambush.

"What the  _hell_ is going on?" she asked no one in particular after one of the turians tried to rush her. Pushing him back, Shepard realized she didn't like the direction this firefight was taking. It was drawing out too long. The combination of Saren's resources and knowledge of her tactics suggested she was going to have to improvise and fast because the situation was quickly going to hell in a hand basket.

She ordered her team back through the doorway and spun past Alenko as she entered. Holstering her pistol she knelt down. Williams leaned slightly away from the wall to watch her. "What are you doing?"

"They aren't wearing helmets," Shepard noted with a grin and a raise of her eyebrows. She wasn't sure who it was, or really what caused the sound that belied surprise, but she knew what it was in reference to-the rather long black blade she drew from her boot.

"You're gonna get handsy with a turian?" Williams tried to sound scathing, but it came off as a little more like jealous.

Shepard gestured at Kaidan to let her take his position at the door. Her eyes locked on his. "When the first one comes through you step out and toss his boyfriend. Just get me … as long as you can get me."

He nodded.

 _If you fuck this up we are all done for, Shepard_ , she thought _. You've got twelve seconds to get this guy down. Plenty of time_ , she assured herself. "Plenty of time," she whispered to no one as she took a long deep breath.

Twelve seconds was precisely how long William's fortification and shields would hold out against a focused barrage.  _Unless, of course, the turian overloaded the chief's shields, in which case, it would be less_. Shepard shook off the thought.  _Saren will not get the pleasure of taking any more of my crew._

The three of them stood there bait-like hoping to draw the turians into the trap.  _Fuck! I hope this works_ , she thought looking from one marine to the other as they waited. Then suddenly she heard it again echoing off the interior of her skull.  _"When you put it that way there's no reason they wouldn't love you." Son of a bitch. This is not the time to crack up, Shepard_. She shook her head violently.

Then she heard the careful scrape of clawed boots on the smooth floor, then the shadow.  _Guess even turians can be stupid._ She leaned back, trying not to draw the target's attention.  _Two steps. Come on, you flightless avian bastard._

When he turned toward Williams, the three of them moved in sync with one another, it was a beautiful and dangerously choreographed dance. The chief slid across the wall as she boosted her shield, drawing the turian's fire as Shepard pounced. She got the momentum she needed, pulled his head up just enough and buried the knife deeply into the soft break where his neck met his skull-just where Nihlus had told her to before Eden Prime.

Kaidan was half a step behind Shepard and had pulled the second attacker into the air when he popped up to take aim at them. As Shepard twisted the knife, she manipulated the turian's head to bring his body to the ground without interfering with Williams. Nyx fell to the ground with the dead assassin as weapon's fire echoed off the rounded walls while Shepard remained crouched and pulled his buddy back into the air for her team to finish him off.

"Thank you, Nihlus," she said in a tone heavy with relief when it was all said and done. "Turian Anatomy 101, pays off," she added when her team looked at her curiously.

"Damn. Wish I'd have been in that class," Ashley replied with more than a pang of jealousy.

The commander chuckled as she climbed off her victim. She shook her hand sharply to get some of the excess blood off her gauntlet before she reached down and grabbed the hilt of her knife.  _No way. It can't be stuck._

"Try to steal a marine's knife, that's just poor manners," she lectured as she finally pulled it lose then turned her attention to inspecting the dead assassin. "Check the other one," she ordered quickly to her squad who were still staring alternately at her and one another.

Shepard joined them in a matter of minutes, still shaking her hand slightly as she crossed the courtyard. Her squad looked up at her with looks between confusion and curiosity. "What?" she asked with a nonchalant shrug, like what they'd just done was perfectly normal. "Find anything?" she redirected with a quick glance around the ambush site.

"Not a damn thing." The lieutenant looked up at her a little exasperated. "I mean not a shred of anything, even the default programming is gone, let alone anything we could trace."

Williams stood and looked down at the turian, "It's like they expected them to fail."

Shepard nodded for a second. "They did. Expect them to fail. Then you're covered either way. Standard procedure-no trace, no clues. It's a turian thing. They do it with the military, too, from time to time. Wipe their tools, black market armor. Then if they're lost, there's no trail to follow."

The commander's eyes moved over the body lying before her as she spoke with a rather removed tone. She neglected to mention their own Alliance was a fan of that particular method of covering their tracks as well. Shepard realized she was moving toward rambling and stopped cold.

"They were a test. My guess is either someone is watching or the security footage will find its way to Saren. So smile and wave we're on assassin camera." She looked at the turian one last time before she stepped over him, sending a clear message of her own to whatever audience might be watching. Normally she exhibited more respect and consideration for the dead, even her enemies, but she wanted Saren to understand that she wasn't easily intimidated, nor was she afraid of him or his resources.

"Very nice work by the way. I mean it... Stellar. Absolutely stellar," she said as they approached Chora's Den.

The door slid open and Shepard felt an overwhelming desire to take the knife back out and stab someone or, hell, everyone. In her conversation with Anderson he had neglected to mention one very important detail about this so-called club. Sure there was music and there was a bar. But it was the main attraction that made the commander purse her lips slightly.

Shepard glanced over her shoulder at the chief who captured both their feelings more than adequately when she said, "A million light years from where humanity began only to find a bar filled with men drooling over half-naked women shaking their asses on stage. I can't decide whether that's funny or sad."

"Can't it be both," Shepard muttered.  _Advanced civilizations, my ass_. "Let's find this guy." She walked right, circling the round bar and scanning the faces of the few humans she saw. She heard Harkin before she saw him.

Harkin pushed hard, pouring all he had into his attempts to rattle and distract the commander. Though it hadn't worked on her, his sly smiles and smirks suggested he was succeeding in getting reactions from her associates. Shepard was more used to this type of thing than she should be. She'd spent most of her life, and her entire career bombarded by this type of behavior to varying degrees. Williams mentioned growing up in the colonies, but being female in the service, especially in combat duty, Shepard figured the Chief had some experience with sexual harassment. Alenko, however, he was likely the one struggling the most. His file had him growing up Earth-side, and though Shepard knew men caught a fair amount of it too, she figured the chivalrous guy who'd bound a mugger in stasis when they had first met was not taking this little display in stride.

Eventually Shepard got the tidbit she needed and guided her team out the door to more of Harkin's targeted crassness. But she'd kept herself between them and him the entire time, in case he'd pushed anyone too far. She didn't have time to deal with the repercussions of a confrontation. Once they were outside, the two of them moved quickly away from one another and from Shepard. She could tell they needed a moment. The lieutenant was leaning against and tightly gripping the balustrade, while Ashley paced with her hands on her hips and her eyes cast skyward. Shepard stood between them and the door of the strip club with her arms crossed over her chest, while they sorted themselves out.

Eventually Kaidan calmed enough to speak, though his irritation was still evident in the tension in his body and his voice. "How could you let that guy talk to you like that?"

"He matters even less than anything he had to say, past telling me where to find the turian," Shepard replied calmly as she assessed both marines.

He pushed off the balustrade and faced her, poking himself in the chest as he spoke. "I have two sisters, if anyone ever talked to them the way that guy talked to you…" He concluded his statement with a frustrated shake of his head as he spun away from the commander again.

"Kind of agree with Alenko, ma'am," Williams added, finally stopping, resting her gaze on the commander. "And what was that crap about the Captain?"

"Don't know. Don't care." She shrugged; Harkin was not an intelligence resource and she was certain that any information he would freely offer up was likely tainted with bourbon and spite.

They both stared at her. She placed her hand on the grip of the pistol on her hip, gesturing subtly with the other. "Why were we here?"

No answer.

"Garrus. That's it. Not to beat down some failure thinking with the wrong head. Not to dig up Anderson's skeletons. I got what I needed. I know where my turian is, and I have a job to do. When you're ready to get back to it, find me."

She walked off in the direction of the ward's markets wishing she'd wiped some of the blood off on Harkin's shirt, the drying liquid made the mesh of her glove stick to her palm. It was a little irksome and made her feel rather grimy, leaving her with an ill-fitting gauntlet on the left and a gooey one on the right. She shook her hand again knowing it would not help the odd, slimy sensation.

The commander had been well aware that she wouldn't make it through the first hatch before her people would rejoin her. The quick footfalls confirmed it. They had merely needed a moment to refocus and she knew she had a little more experience with these types of situation and the excess amount of stress, than they had.

It hadn't been an easy situation all the way around, and she couldn't blame them for reacting. The stress had been piling on incrementally since they met with Udina culminating with having to stand there and listen to Harkin degrade and deride their XO and their CO in turn. Shepard had spent years in high stress situations; she knew that for the most part this was a new way of life for the two marines with her. So she guided them like she did all the others she'd worked with and trained. And if she was entirely honest with herself, there were more than a few moments when she had to resist the urge to punch Harkin in the throat.

After an encounter like the one outside Chora's Den, normally she would have pulled her squad out of the mix, if only long enough to shower and fuel up. This was not an ideal situation, however. Shepard's clock was counting down-she needed to find this turian before the timers ran out for the krogan and on the quarian. Thus the trio of marines moved quickly toward the little medical clinic in the upper area of the wards.

 

**v.**

* * *

 

An idealist, Dr. Chloe Michel ran a clinic in the wards where she tried to help as many people as needed it. Trained in xeno-medicine she opened her doors to any species on the Citadel and often found that her patients tended to be non-council races: batarians, quarians, humans, of course, and even a few drell. Her clientele were mainly the forgotten and overlooked of the Citadel-some were marginalized merely because of their species and the rarity of their people among the citizenry of the Citadel. Too often her offices were filled with the young, the ones security officers called duct rats, children who played and lived in the crawl spaces so common on the Citadel.

Garrus Vakarian knew her reputation well. She was a talented doctor who could have practiced anywhere on the Citadel with her education, but she chose to be here in the wards. She had resorted to living out of her clinic. He knew she owned the space outright-bought it with her inheritance-but she didn't keep anything back for herself it all went to the people she helped, the overlooked, the ignored, the forgotten.

"Sorry Garrus," she said as she stepped back out of the closet where she'd hastily stowed the pillow and blankets that had been neatly folded at one end of the sofa when he entered. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I can see that," he said lightly.

"How can I help you?"

"Remember that young female you told me about? The one trying to sell information?"

"Of course," Chloe replied as she tiredly poured herself into the chair behind her desk.

"I need to speak with her."

Michel shook her head once and then leaned forward resignedly. "I told you before. I don't know where she is. When she came in for the last dose I told her you needed to speak with her urgently. But she declined, Officer."

He didn't say anything.

"I tried to tell her you weren't like other C-Sec officers. But she was having none of it. She simply said that no turian would help her."

_If whatever this quarian has is bad enough to make her see any turian as a threat, he had to get his hands on that information. There was no way around it._

A loud crash was followed by a clattering of small metal objects from the main area of the clinic. The doctor was on her feet scrambling out the door instantly. "Oh no!" she cried, seeing the freshly sterilized instruments strewn about the floor. She never saw the man who grabbed her by the throat.

Judging by the red shirts, they were Fist's crew, which offered him a modicum of relief.  _At least they weren't hired by Saren._  He peeked around the doorway quickly, finding that they had dragged the doctor to the treatment area, which was a bad thing in a myriad of ways. It was secluded from the rest of the clinic, there were medications back there, and tons of sharp and ready torture tools. He knew the doctor was in more than just danger for her life. Fist's boys had a bad reputation for pushing the boundaries way too far. Garrus was sure of one thing, them killing her was probably pretty low on her list of things that might happen in that room if he didn't intervene-it was on his.

He coiled around the door and pressed himself against the wall trying to step as lightly and quietly as possible, knowing his own tendency to scrape his talons along the ground when he walked. When he was younger, if his father heard the telling scrape, he'd yell, "Pick up your feet, son. March proud. Remember the honor of the Vakarian name." Garrus pinched his eyes closed and took a deep breath, this was not the time or place to have his father's voice in his head pointing out every misstep.

The whoosh of the clinic door broke his attention and he cocked his head at the short blonde it took him a moment to recognize.  _Shepard. What is she doing here?_  Her eyes moved from him and widened a bit at the scene behind him. All he could think to do in that moment was raise a talon to his mouth. She could be just the distraction he needed.

"Who the hell are you?" the seeming leader growled as he pulled Dr. Michel toward him.

"Just put the gun down. We can talk this out," Shepard ordered calmly, gun drawn on the suspect.

The encounter was over in a matter of minutes, but these sorts of confrontations usually were. Garrus had put down the man who'd grabbed the doctor with one shot, then mainly just watched as Shepard and the female soldier with her cleared the rest of them. From the moment she walked in the door the little human had taken full control of the situation and maintained it.

"Alenko. Williams. Take the doctor here to her office," she said, eying the turian in a way that reminded Garrus way too much of his father.

"Aye, aye, ma'am," they replied in unison.

Not taking her eyes off of Garrus, Shepard tugged at the other woman's arm and whispered something into her ear. The C-Sec officer glanced at the office door when he heard it close. It had been a mistake.

The impact of the hit shocked him, but no more so than finding himself pressed tightly up against a wall by someone so much smaller than himself. He blinked down at her unmoving as a fire twisted and burned in her eyes. Garrus suddenly realized he had underestimated her. When she showed up, he had assumed she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, it never crossed his mind that she might be there for the same thing he was.  _But after what happened with the Council why wouldn't she be looking for some way to get back at that smug Spectre bastard?_

"What the hell were you thinking?" she growled through gritted teeth.

"It was a clean shot."

"You could have hit the hostage."

She bounced him off the wall once more, much more lightly than the last one and pushed away from him. She paced a few steps away, bringing her hand to her forehead. When she looked back up at him, there was little dark blue streak just below her hairline. His eyes shot to her hand, and the barest glisten suggested that the mark was from precisely what he thought it shouldn't be-turian blood.

"What the hell kind of turian are you?" she asked, stopping and looking at him. When she noticed he was staring at her right hand, the commander straightened slightly. "Assassins. Courtesy of Saren Arterius, if I had to take a guess."

"Not surprised."

Shepard seemed to have calmed slightly as she leaned on the exam table he'd used for cover. "Now, would you mind telling me why you pulled that stunt?"

"Calculated risk."

"With a civilian's life? Wow!" Her eyes rose to the ceiling as she took a deep breath. "That has  _got_  to be the first time I've ever heard those words come out of a turian's mouth in response to something like this. Calculated because she was human-" she accused, her eyes on him again.

"Do you have any idea what those men would have done to Dr. Michel? Me possibly miscalculating and killing her was the least of the concerns in my head at that instant," he interrupted. Garrus didn't realize he'd moved until his irritation subsided a bit, and he became conscious of the fact he was looming over the smaller human in a possibly menacing way. What was even more surprising is that she wasn't the least bit intimidated, though that might be because of the encounter that left her hand covered in turian blood.

"Sorry," he said, taking a few careful steps back.

Shepard looked at him curiously, like she wanted him to continue.

"I'm looking for evidence to prove Saren's dirty. I know it in my gut but neither the Executor nor the Council will take that as evidence."

"They won't take mine either," she consoled.

"Dr. Michel takes care of people here. The ones the Council forgets about. And a quarian came to see her. Apparently she was suffering from a bit of an infection and in her delirium told the doctor that she was selling information on a Spectre to the Shadow Broker. I can only assume she meant Saren."

"You know, assumption is the mother of all fuck ups, right?" Shepard asked with a playful smirk as she cast a mischievous glance his way.

"My father used to say something like that."

She straightened and walked toward him. "Well, in this case your gut was right. She's got something on that arrogant bastard, and he's looking as hard as everyone else for her."

"So you were here about the quarian, too?"

She shook her head. "Nope. I was looking for you."

Her eyes were calm and steady, completely cool. The stark change from earlier disturbed him slightly. But it was no more striking than the shock that she'd been looking for him. "Me? Why?"

"You were looking for evidence against Saren. And that's precisely what I need to take to the Council."

Vakarian realized the implication of it. "Let me help you."

"You're turian."

"Saren is a disgrace. If he were asari or salarian, it wouldn't change my opinion. He's dirty. He needs to be taken down."

The little lift of her eyebrow told him he'd shocked her. She eyed him carefully once. "Fine." She straightened and walked toward him, stopping and grabbing the collar of his suit, jerking him toward her. The deep blue eyes were icy now. "You  _ever_  pull a stunt like that again. I'll kill you myself. That is not how I work."

"Understood," he replied quickly. "I'll follow your lead." She gave him a time and a place. "I'll meet you there. I'll also have C-Sec post a guard on the infirmary for now."

 

  
****vi.** **

* * *

Dr. Michel hadn't been able to provide any new information on the quarian so the team left her sedated and comfortably resting on her sofa after a message from Garrus suggested they not be at the clinic when security arrived, unless they wanted to be detained. Sticking to maintenance corridors, they managed to back track their way back to the docks, thanks to Alenko and his penchant for research; he'd dug up a few maps that helped them avoid places they could have easily become lost in.

 _What the hell are you thinking, Shepard?_   _Hooking up with krogan mercenaries and trigger-happy turians._  Garrus was a decent shot and seemed dedicated to some sense of justice. Wrex was formidable, though he had a reputation that could be problematic. But she didn't have much in the way of options.

"Fucking impressive," the commander mumbled as she considered what she'd learned over the previous several hours.

"What?" Alenko asked. Shepard just looked over at him. "What's impressive?"

She nodded realizing she'd done more than thought it. "This quarian. The fact that she has this evidence at all is incredible. But add to that her ability to elude C-Sec, Fist's crew, Saren, and the Shadow Broker. She's got to be something else."

"No doubt," Williams agreed with a nod. "Makes you wonder how she's managed it."

Alenko ignored the fact that the suggestion was completely rhetorical. "Quarians are on the fringes. After their creation of the geth the Council turned them away, and people started treating them with suspicion. They are seen a nomads and refugees. The volus call them clanless-a major insult in their culture-because they lost their homeworld to the geth."

The two women looked over at him, this time with more encouragement than derision.

"Sorry," he replied quickly.

"That's kind of sad." Ashley noted with a faraway look. "Keep going."

The corner of Alenko's mouth twitched then he continued his little diatribe on quarian history and culture.

The three of them worked well together-in combat they were easy partners. Now came the tougher side of team building, getting personalities to mesh. Alenko and Williams were about as opposite as they could be. The lieutenant was a tech expert and seemed to have a curious streak; he was all about data and information-very much a by the brain soldier. Ashley was the opposite. She was all about the heart. She felt her way through combat, and looked at things with a trace of wonder and awe. Their little deviation at the observation point and the chief's impromptu poetry recitation had cemented that for Shepard.

"Then there's their immune systems. That's why they wear the suits, and the reason the quarian went to Michel. Even a minor infection could have killed her. But at the same time that suit is probably one of the reasons she's been so hard to find. She could easily go unnoticed and unrecognized, well, in a place with some other quarians."

"I haven't even seen a quarian since we hit the Citadel," Williams noted, looking around a bit like one might just pop up because she said it.

Alenko shook his head. "They know how people feel about them. They keep to themselves, take care of their own."

 _Kind of like marines_ , Shepard thought. "So where would I find quarians on the Citadel?"

"You wouldn't," a husky blonde man said from a few feet away. "Didn't mean to interrupt."

"No, it's fine." Shepard replied. "Why not?"

His uniform told her he was Citadel Security. "People around here don't much trust them. They see them as scavengers and thieves. I've never heard of many of them actually doing anything like that, though they get accused of it often enough. They are geniuses with tech, there's this little guy down in the mechanic's shop; he's an absolute god with any kind of engine they throw at him.

"Plus there's that whole geth thing makes folks nervous, especially now. After… " The officer stopped short

The marines traded a quick unnoticed look as they neared the man. None of them needed need him to finish the statement to know what he meant-Eden Prime.

"They've been even more skittish than usual lately. But they've always kept to themselves. The ones that come in usually stay with other quarians that left the Flotilla. Some will brave the shelters, but not many. Like your friend said, they seem to take care of their own," he concluded.

Shepard just watched him, while he gesticulated ferociously as he spoke. As she crossed over toward him, from the shadow into the light, he froze. The commander furrowed her brow and looked around for whatever might have put the young man into his current stupor. "Are you all right, officer?"

"You!… You're…," he glanced over at Alenko when she had and leaned toward the lieutenant, though his eyes never left Shepard. "Do you realize who that is?" he whispered.

Alenko nodded and patted his shoulder a little. "Yeah."

He lurched forward and grabbed her upper arms trying to hold himself upright as he looked at her. "My grandpa still talks about you. The night you and your guys came into his shop." The officer swallowed hard. "It's an honor to meet you, Commander."

She shook his hand. "Look…"

"Lang. Eddie Lang."

"Okay Eddie. You're grandfather's name is Willis right?"

"Yeah. Ed Willis. I was named after him. I can't believe you remember him."

She laughed and smiled widely as she told her team, "If it weren't for Mr. Willis we'd have been throwing sticks and rocks at those pirates." They all laughed this time. "Tell your grandfather I send my best."

"Oh, I will. He'd skin me alive if he found out I saw you and didn't tell him about it."

"Take care, Eddie," she said as she backed away and continued toward her destination.

Once in the elevator Williams leaned toward Shepard and said, "So is he the president of your fan club or just your run of the mill fanboy?"

Shepard turned and glared at her.

"Yeah, Shepard that was a little much," Alenko agreed.

"You… You're… "Ashley draped her wrist over her forehead and pretended to swoon against the wall of the lift.

The three of them burst out laughing as the elevator doors opened. Shepard smiled slightly and shook her head as she followed them onto the dock.


	8. Chasing Intel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard manages to secure the information the Council needs, but the conclusion of one exercise beyond her typical purview has the unexpected consequence of thrusting her right into a new one. The massive scale of what is now being placed on her threatens the skewed sense of normalcy her life had before the Normandy. And she struggles to find a way to come to terms with it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acknowledgements: I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers-xforeverquotex and my paramour. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece.
> 
> Disclaimer: Mass Effect belongs to Bioware, I'm only playing with their universe. I do not own the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. I do it for the love of the game, the world, and the characters; and because they stuck with me long after I turned the game off (and back on, and off, ad infinitum).

**08 Chasing Intel**

  
****i.** **

* * *

There were four hours left on her timer and Shepard intended to steal one. Stopping at the Fifth Fleet HQ she briefed Anderson on what she'd discovered and even let him in on her plan to play nice with the krogan and the turian. The commander had explained away his concerns as using the resources you had available. It was a stance Anderson couldn't argue with too much, though he didn't like the idea of her going anywhere with a krogan without a full squad for back up. Of course, she wasn't too keen on it either, but her assessment of the situation told her the risks were minimal.

Back on the ship, she discovered someone must have been playing a screwed up game of musical armor sets because everyone's left glove was not their own. After returning Niveda's gauntlet and reappropriating her own from Crosby's kit, Shepard set out on a personal quest to regain a little sense of humanity.

It had only been about twelve hours since her day started but it felt longer and was definitely stranger than even her usual. She thought she might just need to unwind a little bit to get it all to fall back into place. A hot shower made her feel a less tense, though it hadn't provided quite as much relief as she'd hoped. Just at that point when she'd been warmed by the water almost to the point of soothing, she heard Alenko's voice in her head again along with the little nervous flutter in her chest that had accompanied the statement at the overlook. For a moment she smiled when she remembered the blush in his cheeks and the nervousness in his voice as he'd tried to backpedal and correct what he'd said.

She turned and pressed her hands against the wall, lifting her face into the stream of water. Then the officer in the back of her head snapped to and overtook the image. Nyx's life had always had priorities, and her career had always been the foremost. In the past she'd been flirted with before, even by men she had worked with, but she had never taken the bait. A part of her felt what was happening with Alenko was not that simple. He wasn't throwing lines at her or making innuendos. The lieutenant was letting things slip, revealing things he didn't seem to mean to. It was endearing and confusing; promising and frightening.

Usually Nyx kept her personal life far away from her own specialty-she had dated a medic and a weapons specialist, but never had the inclination or the interest been there for her to even consider starting something with anyone in her own specialty, let alone her own squad. Part of her reconciled this new dilemma with the reality of it all. She'd met him before she'd known he would be on the  _Normandy_ , let alone part of her squad. But when it all came down to it, Shepard knew it didn't matter. Not really. There were regs about this-clear cut, fairly easily understood rules about fraternization within the same chain of command. In their association it was doubly clear-as a crewmember of the  _Normandy_  and as part of her squad-she was twice as culpable.

_What the hell is going on with you, Shepard? This isn't like you. You don't get hung up on things, especially men. Maybe it's specifically because you know he's off limits. And humans always want what they can't have_. She knew that wasn't a viable explanation for her distraction, but it was as good an excuse as any and seemed to quiet her subconscious for the time being.

Shepard grabbed a large cup of coffee from near the mess hall on the way back to her quarters. By the time she finished it she had nearly completed the transition back to almost human. Within a half an hour of returning to the ship, she was re-armored and ready to meet with the aliens she'd set an appointment with. She had lingered a little longer than she planned in the hopes that Caz might ping her before she left to meet with the aliens. Her old friend had been silent, which wasn't wholly unexpected given the grab bag of information she'd off-handedly asked him for. In fact thinking about it she knew it was a little unreasonable to think he'd be able to get back to her in less than sixteen hours, and that would only be if he'd seen the message immediately.

After tucking her gauntlets into a pouch on her belt, she looked up and noticed the staff lieutenant leaning on the bulkhead that separated the bridge from the helm. As she approached he wordlessly straightened and stood a step behind her at her right shoulder.

"Something I can help you with, Lieutenant?" she asked as she waited for the airlock to open.

"Not at all, ma'am."

When she stepped in, he followed. Shepard turned her head and eyed him for a moment before the door closed. "Where ya headed?" she asked casually, though she had a sneaking suspicion she knew the answer.

Anderson had not been to keen on her plan. He had all but ordered her to take at least one of the squad with her.

"Just following orders, Commander," he replied carefully.

Nyx breathed deeply for a moment with a minute shake of her head. "And what are those orders?"

"To accompany you."

"Of course, they are." Shepard's steps were quick and heavy as she strode up the gangway. And in that moment she didn't care if her stance gave away her irritation.

Shepard and Alenko had made their way across the wards. She had not planned on the escort, but Captain Anderson had ordered it. Her aggravation must have been clearer than she thought because as they neared the rendezvous point Alenko advised her that his orders were to escort her to Flux, and to be prepared to accompany farther, if his presence or assistance were requested. The commander had not expected that admission, and part of her had to wonder if Alenko was supposed to announce that caveat in his orders to her.

Understanding and appreciating her CO's concerns about the situation, she had not intended to fight him on his insistence that she take a crewman, at least, when she thought he had ordered it. With the revelation, Shepard knew that Anderson was trying to remind her of her training. She also suspected he was hoping that since the lieutenant was already there and prepared, that the commander would just take him along because it was convenient.

It all boiled down to faith. Shepard always seemed to have more of that in her people and in others than Anderson did. The captain trusted his people, once they earned it. The commander was a little different. She leant everyone a modicum of faith from the outset; to gain her full confidence a person had to earn it. But she gave people around her the benefit of the doubt at the outset. As her old chief put it to her old team, Commander Shepard gave everyone enough rope to hang themselves with-usually it didn't happen that way, but sometimes it did.

Anderson didn't place quite as much faith in people or their words in general as Shepard did, though there were exceptions to every rule. While the commander was willing to trust the word of the aliens she was meeting, in the CO's book neither a krogan mercenary nor a turian security officer garnered such consideration. He'd read files on both, and while Vakarian at least seemed on the up and up, Anderson had told her that you could never be too sure with C-Sec. But in the end it looked like her old friend was going to trust her and her judgment, if nothing else he was at least going to let her run the mission her way.

Standing in the doorway of Flux, a loud dance club near the markets, the commander noticed Alenko wince. Bright lights danced and flashed in the darkness and the music was enough to make her wish she'd brought her helmet so she could tune it out. Shepard liked all types of music but the playful techno circus music was not something she could abide, nor did she define it as actual music.

_Hell, it reminds me of the Corona Club_. The thought instantly made Shepard grimace, though she knew it was more due to her current mindset of trying to distance herself from the things that happened that night than the memory itself.

The crowd was made up of a surprising mix of aliens, there were even a few humans. But the two males she was looking for right then were nowhere to be found yet. Of course, she was a mite early.

"Come on, I'll buy you a drink," she offered, moving toward the bar.

Alenko followed her, stepping up to the bar beside her. "I don't like the idea of this, Shepard."

Nyx didn't know why Alenko and Anderson were up in arms about the aliens, though even Joker had mentioned she might want to take more back up than the knife on this one. "I'll be fine. One's a C-Sec officer-"

"And the other's a krogan mercenary," the lieutenant replied as he stared at her sharply.

She met his gaze, and there was a staggering amount of concern in his eyes, more than there should be, more than she wanted there to be. Shepard looked away quickly.

"The turian is a known quantity. And the krogan is not a threat," Shepard told the sliver of her reflection she caught in the decorative mirror behind the bar. She was trying to sound nonchalant. While she wasn't worried about going to see Fist with the aliens, she wasn't totally lacking in concerns. But hers seemed on a whole different scale than those of her commanding officer and her lieutenant.

"The krogan's not a threat?" he scoffed. "He's a krogan. And a mercenary. His file is … rather extensive. And I know I wasn't the only one that noticed the reception C-Sec laid out for him."

The commander leaned on the bar for a minute and tried to consider things from his side. This was not the first time she'd had a conversation like this with a subordinate, but when she and Chief Jensen argued over tactics and approaches, things seemed a little less weighted. Suddenly her mind was swimming in a pond she didn't want to be in. She shook her head clear and went another route-cold and detached. But that didn't seem right either. So she shifted again.

"Yes. I noticed the extra squad up the stairs. Yes, I read the listing of the work he is suspected of being part of. And I'm aware of the reputation that intelligence states Urdnot Wrex has, but I know what I'm doing. Trust me," she said, glancing up at him. With that she noticed a slight change in his demeanor.

He turned toward her and leaned his forearm on the bar, closing the distance between them slightly. His eyes bore into hers. "I do trust you, Shepard. I just-"

"Don't trust them?"

He nodded, his jaw tightening.

"Then trust my judgment. I've worked with people like Wrex before. And the read I get off him is not threatening, well, at least not toward me. Right now." She stopped adding, it didn't seem to be relieving the lieutenant's apprehension.

Kaidan just stared at her; she wasn't sure if he was reassured or not. But it didn't matter, she knew he'd follow her orders. He was too good a soldier to go against her direct order, unless it countermanded the order of a superior, which he had already told her he did not have. The bartender being otherwise occupied prompted her suggestion that she would have to owe him a drink once she noticed Garrus and Wrex arrive. Shepard wasn't surprised when she had to order Alenko to return to the  _Normandy_ ; she had expected to. From everything she learned about him, she knew he would not just walk away and leave any member of his team in that situation.

  
****ii.** **

* * *

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya had been on the Citadel too long, and as her time there looked like it was drawing to a close she was even more cautious about keeping to herself. She mainly stuck to the maintenance tunnels, only the oblivious insectoid Keepers and grubby children seemed to frequent those places. When she did brave the corridors most of the other beings strolling through the wards made a point to avoid her. Some would glare, and one male human had been so bold as to spit in her path as he passed her. She ignored them all. The last thing she wanted or needed was undue attention.

For the last several months, she had been itching to start her Pilgrimage. Her excitement and planning often made her father shake his head at her in exasperation, while her Auntie Raan would just giggle with her and encourage the newest idea Tali presented. At first she just wanted to see anything in the galaxy beyond the Flotilla. Then she drafted a plan that might put her in a place to bring back something of untold usefulness. But after only having been gone a little over a month, she just wanted to go back to that place, a place she knew, a place she belonged.

She hadn't been anywhere near the Citadel and just happened upon a patrol of geth on a deserted little moon. Separating one platform hadn't been too hard. There had been an overwhelming sense of pride when she managed to get any data off the memory core at all. Then it all went sideways and she wound up hiding in crawl spaces on the Citadel, surviving on turian rations she had gotten from a shelter early on. Then she wound in a human clinic after some turian security officer took a shot at her when she refused to relinquish her identification information.

Not being able to comprehend how her pilgrimage went so far off course, she ducked into another darkened corridor, with a resolved sigh.  _That's why you're doing this_ , she told herself again.  _The Shadow Broker can get you off the Citadel and with the credits Fist said he'd pay for the information you'll be able to return to home with your head held high_. She'd already planned it out, in theory, dreamed about it a few times-returning to her people with a new ship to add to the roles. It would be a Pilgrimage gift worthy of the daughter of one of the Admiralty.

She just had to get off this station before Citadel Security or Saren Arterius' people found her. Tali had staked out the place she set for the meet; and when she arrived, the cameras she placed days earlier were still there and had not been tampered with. She tucked herself into a crawl space she had seen children using and waited.

Her fear would not overrule her. There was no other choice. This had to be done-for herself, for her people, and to get her off the Citadel in one piece. But she was scared out of her mind. Tali hadn't planned on spending her trek into adulthood in hiding. A soft chime rang in her ear announcing the meeting would happen soon; it was followed quickly but somewhat distant chatter.

Leaning her head forward she steeled her resolve and her nerves. No one could know her fear, her concern, her desire just to go back home. When she stepped out of the shadows, the turian spun and looked at her.

"Well, well, well. I'm glad you showed," he crooned, stalking toward her.

Tali glided down the steps gracefully, wordlessly. He probed her for the whereabouts of the data, eying her like he would see the answer written on her suit. When he set his hand on her, she slapped it away. "Where's the Shadow Broker? Where's Fist?"

"Calm down. They'll be here." He leaned toward her, his gaze clearly implying intent beyond anything she would consider consenting to.

"No way! Deal's off!"

When she turned, he grabbed her arm. She was prepared for the double cross, and her reaction caught the turian and his salarian friends by surprise. The electrical explosion stunned and blinded them long enough for the quarian to put some distance between her and them. She pulled up short when her escape was cut off by an approaching human flanked by a krogan and a turian.

Tali'Zorah was certain in that moment that Saren's men had found her. She backed herself against a crate and when the human drew her pistol, the quarian screwed her eyes closed. She heard the shots, but felt nothing. Opening her eyes she saw that the woman was firing on the turian she had come to meet, and his associates.

She wasn't sure what was happening, but not being the target of both groups gave her a little more confidence. And once Fist's men were handled, Tali'Zorah spun and took aim at the human. "I don't know who you are…"

"I'm Alliance. Lieutenant Commander Shepard."

_Alliance. What do the humans have to do with this?_

"What do you want?"

"Are you okay?" the woman asked taking a step toward her, hands raised in the air. The turian had put away his weapon as well, but the krogan still had a shotgun in hand.

Gesturing with her pistol, Tali stated, "I can take care of myself."

"I can see that." The smile was genuine and seemed to suggest she actually agreed. "I realize you don't know us. But I'd like to talk to you, and this isn't really the safest place for that."

"Why do you want to talk to me?"

"We're trying to find evidence against Saren," the turian announced. "And we were told you might be able to help with that."

Tali looked at them, then at the krogan. The human glanced over her shoulder and gestured at the large alien. Reluctantly he put his weapon away finally. "Some place public."

"Will the embassies work?"

Tali nodded.

"Let's get out of here, before anyone else shows up." Shepard let the turian lead, she figured it would be the least obvious, and the krogan walked a few steps behind the quarian. At first Tali kept glancing over her shoulder at him, he tried to smile at her once, presumably to calm any possible anxiety. It made her chuckle.

Tali'Zorah wasn't really sure what had happened in that maintenance area, but it certainly wasn't what she had expected. There were four more humans in the office when they arrived at the embassy. Three of them seemed to be waiting for them. The fourth seemed to be annoyed by their arrival.

The man she would learn was the ambassador was angry and didn't try to hide it. "You're not making my life easy Shepard. Fire fights in the Wards. An all-out assault on Chora's Den. Do you have any idea how many-"

He stopped momentarily when he turned and saw the marine flanked by a formidable pair of aliens and standing next to a petite demure quarian. "Who's this, Shepard?" Tali watched his eyes move from one alien to the next and stop on her and narrow. "What are you up to, Shepard?"

He looked suspicious. It was not something unfamiliar to Tali, at least not since coming to the Citadel. She clasped her hands in front of her, uncertain for the first time about having accompanied the human.

"Making your day, Ambassador. This is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, and she has offered to help us," Shepard said, taking a step toward the quarian.

Tali looked over at the woman in shock. Shepard had pronounced her name right. It surprised the quarian that such a little thing as that could make her more comfortable but it did. She straightened a little and keyed open her omnitool as she explained what Saren had been after and how she had managed to retrieve it.

  
****iii.** **

* * *

"Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon brings us one step closer to finding the Conduit."

"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

After hearing the recording, Donnel Udina was practically salivating. Shepard and Anderson were a little more concerned with the information in, than the implications of, the recording, but Udina was happy just to have the evidence he needed to prove Saren was behind the attack on Eden Prime. So much so he muscled in another meeting with the Council for the end of the day.

Williams eyed the aliens carefully as she approached the commander. "Nicely done, ma'am."

"All I did was escort her back here, really," Shepard replied, redirecting the praise from the chief as she had done with Williams after Eden Prime. "Turns out the Tali'Zorah, here, barely needed our help."

"Tali, please. And you are being modest, Commander," the quarian accused.

"She does that a lot," Williams noted.

"Guess Saren's outmatched across the board then," Anderson suggested as he slipped an arm over the commander's shoulder and led her away from the others. "Looks like you have made some interesting connections here, Shepard."

"Not the first time," she said with a telling smirk.

"So, are we going to need to put in a new requisition order?" Anderson asked.

"Not sure. Didn't really discuss the options past Fist and Tali, though, by the sound of it, Tali's up for anything that gets her off the Citadel. Not that I can blame her much. But we'll have to see what the Council does about Saren."

"What do you think they are going to do about you?" Anderson asked quietly.

"Nothing to do. The evaluator's dead. If this were ICT, I'd say they'd reassign me. But I'm not sure this kind of thing would work the same way. If the guy that spoke up for you bites it because you weren't there to back him up, that reads like an automatic fail to me," she opined, staring out at the large lake.

"I think you're selling yourself short."

"The turian councilor already made his opinion known. He blames me for the beacon. And there's cause. It did explode after I touched it, voluntary or not. And these sorts of things require unanimous votes I'm guessing, right?"

The captain shrugged, when she glanced over at him. "He won't come back when they rescind his status."

"No doubt. He's psychotic, not stupid."

"You've already proven-"

"That I can shoot up a strip club. Let a mercenary kill an unarmed prisoner. And escort a very capable quarian. I haven't proven anything."

David stood and looked down at her. "Do you want this?"

"You know, Captain. That's the thing. I don't know if I want it. I never thought about being a Spectre. All I ever wanted was SpecOps, and N7 was a pipe dream that came true. I got what I wanted," she replied, shaking her head uncertainly.

"I can see that. But will you do it, if they offer it to you?"

"I'm not sure." She turned and faced him. "I know this is what the brass wants. I know you said the Alliance needs this. Udina's all 'humanity needs a Spectre.' But why me? I'm just. … God, how did Admiral Lindholm from First put it…?" She thought about it a second tilting her head then looked up at him seriously. "A little bitch with a rifle and some comfortable boots."

"That's bullshit and you know it, Shepard," he growled, softly poking the air between them with his index finger."Why don't you see these things in any shade but your own? You protected a vital intelligence resource. Got a C-Sec officer and a krogan to work together to thwart a rogue Spectre's attempt to bury evidence against him and kill an innocent just trying to go home." He looked at her sharply. "For Christ's sake, girl. Modesty is one thing, reality is another."

"Is it? This is what I'm good at. Being on the ground. Running and gunning with a face full of mud. I don't do politics. I don't play these backdoor games."

"You. What you've always done. That is what a Spectre is." He leaned toward her in a way that suggested he was about to cross a line. "There was a committee," he whispered.

Her eyes widened and searched his.

With a nod toward the ambassador, he explained, "Udina, Vice President Walsh, Secretary of Defense Rossellini, head of the Parliamentary Defense Committee, General Zhong the Alliance Chairman, and Hackett. They only let me in the room because I was working for the admiral. They picked you. Yours was the only name they could all agree on. You are the only soldier with the reputation and the skill to pull this off. That's why they picked you."

"So, you're telling me I'll sink my career if I turn this down?"

"The Alliance won't turn its back on you. Zhong, Rossellini, Hackett, me, we all know you're a solder first. But it's like we all know, sometimes sacrifices have to be made." The look in his dark eyes told her more than she wanted to know. "This might be yours."

"You damn well know I've made more than my fair share already." Her glare was sharp at the implication.

"I know." He looked at her softly. Shepard in some ways had become like a daughter to him, and he knew they were asking a lot.  _Hell, probably too much._

Shepard looked out at the lakes again, watched the humans and aliens milling about the sidewalks leisurely, wholly unaware of her or Saren or his geth. "Fuck," she finally said a little too loudly. She glanced over her shoulder and realized everyone was now looking at her. Her eyes moved over their faces-humans, krogan, turian, quarian. She smiled widely. It was the oddest group she'd ever seen gathered in one place. Shepard looked back up at Anderson and nodded determinedly at him then punched him in the shoulder as she walked back toward the marines in the group.

"What was that all about?" Alenko asked.

"Nothing," she replied with a glance at her boots. "Why don't we all go grab a bite? Politicians are easier to take when you're not starving."

"I could eat," Williams and Wrex said in unison.

"I'm buying," she called with a smile and a deep laugh. The four marines and three aliens slipped out the door, heading for the embassy bistro since they only had a few hours.

  
****iv.** **

* * *

For Shepard it almost felt like the punch line of a joke four humans, a turian, a quarian, and a krogan walk into a bar-and there seemed to be a few patrons that wondered the same thing until they saw how well-armed six out of the seven were. Wrex was the only one that ordered alcohol, the rest were a little more conscious of protocol and appearances.

"Like I'd go near that chamber, even if they'd let me in the door," Wrex announced when a large flagon was set on the table in front of him.

Shepard and the others were conservative in their ordering, opting for coffee, tea, water, and Garrus ordered some turian concoction the commander couldn't pronounce. When the waitress set the tall thin glass filled to the brim with a thick red liquid in front of Garrus, Nyx couldn't help but make the comparison to blood, but what really threw it off was the bright yellow garnish that looked like a hibiscus flower floating on top of it, though she knew it likely wasn't. When he lifted it to his mouth, the syrupy drink stuck to the upper part of his mouth and Shepard tried not to laugh, but it was no use.

"What?" he asked.

"Seriously, Vakarian," Williams replied. When he lifted his napkin to his face, Shepard grabbed his arm. "No, you have to see this."

The chief snapped the image and rounded the table to show it to him. His mandibles fluttered slightly, then he wiped at his mouth calmly. And the whole table erupted in laughter when Garrus did.

"But, my, you did look pretty, Officer," Shepard said playfully between giggles.

Garrus shrugged. "If I find the right gown, I could probably net me a senator back on Palavan."

"Maybe one of the colonies," Wrex joked.

"Are you implying I lack appeal?"

"You don't think the fringe would be a dead giveaway," the commander replied, and the turian looked at her curiously. "Yes, I've seen a female turian. Spent some time outside Vallum on Taetrus."

"What were you doing out there?" Garrus asked.

She tilted her head slightly and looked up at him. "Getting my ass kicked."

"I don't buy that for a minute, Shepard," Anderson countered, knowing the truth of it.

"You of all people?" the commander looked at him and shook her head. "You did a cross training with the turians. It is nothing the sneeze at."

"Yeah, but you were what twenty at the time? You were in your prime."

"Were?"

Anderson laughed loudly. "You are getting up there, now, Commander."

Williams' jaw dropped, but Shepard just bowed her head and laughed. "You put an operator on the line and you just catch hell all day long."

"What were you doing with the turians?" Wrex asked rather seriously.

"Making friends. Pissing people off. You know, the usual," Shepard declared, sipping her coffee.

"Yeah, right. Shepard, you don't strike me as someone who could piss someone off. Too damn by the book." Wrex lifted his flagon to his lips and took a healthy and audible gulp

"Trust me," Garrus added, "by the book can piss people off."

"Very true," Alenko said, looking up from Tali's omnitool.

Shepard knew it was true, but it wasn't the only way she could push someone over the edge. Anderson knew it. Kaidan knew it.

"What do you think the Council will do, Shepard?" Tali asked, very keen on the answer.

Nyx shrugged. "Not even a shade of an idea. I don't know how politicians think."

"They don't," Wrex grumbled.

"On that, I have to agree with the krogan," Garrus nodded, raising his glass to the larger alien.

"They'll rescind his status," Anderson declared. "If we're lucky, they'll do something else intelligent." He lifted his mug to his lips and took a long drink while everyone stared at him.

"Like?" Williams asked with a look that said she knew there was something behind the statement.

The captain got a reprieve, because the waitress returned, this time with food. And once again Wrex's order was the center of attention. The slab of barely seared meat was about size of a small dog, and when he cut into it is quivered gelatinously. Shepard was as much a carnivore as the next soldier, but watching that meat jiggle like it could feel every slice curbed her appetite completely. Chief Williams, however, was wholly unaffected.

The group chatted about nothing of importance as they ate. Wrex talked about his joyous reunions with C-Sec every time he visited the Citadel. Tali and Alenko continued to talk tech and omnitool upgrades. Ashley talked to Garrus about sniper rifles, while Shepard listened in and offered her own careful opinions. Wrex wanted to know about the captain's combat experience, which drew everyone's attention. Then, when Anderson's omnitool chimed they all straightened, knowing this little diversion was coming to an end. As everyone headed for the door, Shepard sought out the waitress to settle up the check and was informed the captain had made a liar out of her.

He winked at her when she exited the lounge and caught up with them. "C-O's privilege," he mentioned before she said anything. She had pulled that little move on her own team before and knew better than to argue, though she narrowed her eyes at him with mock irritation. He clapped her on the soldier and pulled her close for a moment before letting her go. Shepard smiled up at him. One thing in her career had always been certain, Anderson had her back no matter what.

  
****v.** **

* * *

Captain David Anderson led the pack of seven toward the Council Chambers. Shepard had managed to essentially dare the Urdnot Wrex into joining the rest of them, and he tromped along heavily, drawing numerous gazes not only because he was a krogan, but because of the company he kept. Anderson was glad he was there; he thought it might help cast a positive vote for the outcome he wanted from this meeting.

He understood Shepard's hesitance. He'd been there. They were similar soldiers. Joined to serve the Alliance with grandiose dreams of protecting people and keeping Earth and humanity safe from all that lay beyond home in the black sea of space. She trained with her people, fought beside them, protected them, and dragged them back home safe, if she could. She was a marine. That was how she defined herself-it was clear in her manner, her life, even her introduction: rank, name, service. She was Alliance; hell, he of all people knew just how thick it ran in her blood.

He, of all people, knew just what he was asking when he brought this opportunity to her. And with everything else it could be labeled as, the Spectre candidacy was an opportunity. It was a chance for humanity to take a larger role in the galaxy, to prove themselves. Anderson didn't have any children, he had a nephew and he had Shepard. In more ways than he would ever admit to, she was his legacy. She had the chance to correct the mistakes he had made, repair the failures. She had already done it more times than she knew. But this was the biggest-he had been the first human candidate for Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Saren, his evaluator, sank Anderson's chance, and even irrevocably damaged his reputation in certain circles after all was said and done.

Part of him felt like he was over stepping his bounds, as her commanding officer and as her friend, by pushing for this. But he knew Shepard-her strengths, her weaknesses-he even knew the things she hated for people to know, some she had told him, some he discovered on his own.

He waved Shepard forward as they mounted the last staircase leading to the chamber. "Keep moving people. The Council won't wait all day," Anderson ordered with a glance over his shoulder at the people who had been part of all the insanity leading up to that point.

  
****vi.** **

* * *

Darkness. She liked the darkness, it made it easier to think. Nyx's head was still spinning. First, Saren being stripped of his Spectre status, which everyone had expected given the strength of the quarian's evidence, then suddenly she was granted the same rights and responsibilities that the turian had just lost. Things started to spin out of control when Udina basically handed her the pink slip to the  _Normandy_  and told her not to hit the trash cans when she backed it out of the drive. All of this with Anderson standing next to him, telling her to treat the  _Normandy_  well.

Yes, she knew the crew and it really was the perfect ship for a Spectre, but it was  _his_  ship. That one hung her up. She nicked his ship right out from under him. Anderson had always had her back. He had pulled her out of some places she was sure she would not make it out, and he had put her in a few places like that, but too many time he had been in the thick of it with her; and here she was snatching the best ship in the Alliance Fleet out of his hands.

She felt like she was betraying someone who had always been there for her. She stood up, stretching as she crossed to the window and leaned against the window. Looking out at the Citadel, she couldn't help but imagine what it might be like down there-not knowing.  _The bliss of ignorance_.

The rest of it loomed in her mind. Bring Saren to justice at all costs. Then there was some mysterious Conduit to find, which no one knew anything about. And stopping the Reapers, which, best she could tell, were some sort of mythical machine race the geth worshipped. It got unwieldy fast. The idea of just putting together a plan to nab Saren was relatively far beyond the boundary of her comfort zone. But the rest of it Nyx felt qualified under Ashley's term:  _some next level shit_. It was difficult to try to work through, but she was trying.

Shepard's head spun so hard and fast, she felt a little dizzy again and laid her forehead against the glass. Down there were millions of people who had no idea what was happening around them, what was out there, what she was being asked to try and accomplish. Down there were millions of people that needed her to be the tip of the spear. Suddenly her considerations went beyond the Alliance, her men, and her people; she was a Spectre now, for all that meant, part of her still wasn't precisely sure, but one thing she did know was that she was no longer merely beholden to the powers that previously yanked her chain, there were a whole new set of hoops to jump through.

"Well I have to agree with one thing, Alenko was right this is a big place." Shepard quickly realized that was probably the worst thought to add to her current mix of insanity. And again she heard his voice clearly:  _no reason they wouldn't love you._  And she clearly recalled the nervous look he cast at her when the chief made the smart comment about leave and walking drag. Then there was the response to the gunmen outside of Chora's Den and his chivalrous streak rearing its head in response to Harkin, and the way he trembled slightly when she touched his arm.

"Goddamnit, Shepard. Get a grip," she ordered quickly as she peeled herself off the glass and marched to the door.

Her movement was swift and she was highly distracted, which intensified when she ran head long into the lieutenant as the door opened. Her hands stopped on his chest for a second and she felt Alenko tense beneath her touch before she pulled away quickly as if she had pressed up against an open flame.

"Sorry," she said slipping past him. She heard him say her name but it did not register before Nyx was up the stairs and walking purposefully through the CIC.

The airlock closed behind her as she took a long slow breath. The sound made her chuckle-the soft crinkle of the wrapper in her pocket reacting to the motion of her fingers drumming against her thigh. The sky opened above her as she stepped out onto the dock. And she took a deep breath, there was so much more room out on the gangway. For the first time in the last several hours she felt like she could breathe again. Her eyes moved from the elevator then back to the ship suddenly under her command. The green bug guy was still there and he ignored her completely as she walked down the gangway. Fully expecting it to turn around and reprimand her, she hopped the first hip-high bar and waited for a response. When none came she continued the rest of the way down the deck.

Taking a seat on the end of the gangway she pulled the item out of her pocket and stared at the all-too-familiar electric blue logo on the thin silvery wrapper. Looking at it she could not help but think of her mother, who had started buying them for her a few years before her biotic potential was officially recognized. It had been one of the few times her mother was on leave when her father shipped out, and Nyx along with him.

As a girl, Shepard had not realized what precisely was happening at the time, but she still remembered it and looking back it was one of the first times her parents seemed to recognize that there was something off about their daughter-well, more off. She was never what anyone would call normal: she begged for shooting lessons before she was ten, her grandfather passed down the family K-Bar to her before she was a teenager, and her bedtime stories consisted of soldiers, space, and aliens more often than they did of princesses needing rescuing.

Before they had put out on that trip, Hannah Shepard had pulled Nyx aside and tucked the silvery box in the bottom of Nyx's footlocker. Then she and Nyx sat cross-legged on the floor across from one another. Hannah Shepard had held the bar between them, staring at it with a trace of anxiety that Nyx had not read correctly at the time.

"Now these are only for you. You keep one in your pocket and if you feel dizzy or hungry, you eat it." She had nearly placed it in Nyx's hand but pulled it back. "And I know that Lin and Caz are your best friends and you'll want to share. But you really shouldn't."

"Why, Mom?"

Hannah had smiled. "You're different, Sweetie. And they aren't made for everyone to eat. They could make them sick. Okay?" It had been an over exaggeration, but if someone would have recognized the snack Shepard would have likely been declared and amped much earlier than she was.

Her parents had harbored suspicions about Nyx's biotic tendencies, but she had not been detected then, though she must have manifested some sign for her parents to lay out such strict precautions. A few years after that incident it had been her father who finally brought it up to his daughter.

Back on the gangway, Nyx stared down at the wrapper for a moment, then ripped open the seam and took a bite. She let her legs dangle loosely over the edge and leaned back on one hand and admired the massive scale of the city-station around her. It dwarfed Arcturus Station. For the first time in weeks, she did not think about anything really, except how weightless her feet felt as she loosely kicked them while she looked around and chewed silently. The first thought came to her about three bites into the bar.

"God, these things are still disgusting," she told the item as she pulled the wrapper back over it. She stuffed the partially-eaten bar back into her left pocket then dug out the thin volume she currently carried in the right-it was a small anthology of galactic poetry, featuring some of the most well-loved poems from a myriad of cultures. Shepard had purchased it on a whim, and some of the pieces were striking, others, like the Vorcha quatrains, were a little more of a struggle.

She leaned back against the crate to steal a few minutes to herself in the silent brightness of the Citadel, the words of a Hanar bucolic drawing strange images in her brain. The scenes typical to a human pastoral poem took on a new strangeness when that pasture was beneath the deep oceans of the Hanar homeworld Kahje. Despite her unfamiliarity with the species, the planet, or life beneath the water's surface, the poet described shades of a striking and beautiful life.

In that brief moment nothing existed but the imagery of a simple life, and Shepard realized when it all came down to it that was what she had always been fighting for in a lot of ways. For people to have that even if it was not the path her own life took. She reread the poem, replacing the little slip of raw linen between the pages when she was done.

With her promotion things were inordinately more complicated all the way around, and even in the limbic space between the Alliance and the Council that she now inhabited things were even more unclear. But she was certain of one thing. The mission, the goal-Saren had to be brought forth to answer. That she could accomplish.

  
****vii.** **

* * *

According to Fleet Command the transfer of  _Normandy_  to her command and the resupply would take a handful of days. Rather than mill around the ship and think too much about it all, Shepard opted to try and distract herself from everything pressing down on her with some of the whispers she had heard while she was searching for information.

Garrus helped her with a situation involving the sister of a waitress from Flux, finding out which officer was heading up the investigation and getting her a meeting with him. Shepard and Officer Chellick butted heads over his chosen investigative methods, though she understood the impetus for it. Feeling it could possibly be a project that was funding Saren, the commander offered a different type of assistance with his investigation. The turian jumped at the chance. Shepard went along with it, because any thorn she could stick in Saren's side and twist, she was going to make use of, even if she just thought it might be a thorn that was in his neighborhood, she was going to twist it.

Her visit to the Citadel was taking a strange turn. But these were the types of things she had always done. She would over hear something or be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and get herself involved in things she might not have planned. Just like pulling those kids out of the basement on Elysium or interrupting a scheduled rape and pillage visit by the Na'hesit at an Anhur village. Shepard knew she would place herself in this type of position whenever it came up, to keep a civilian from putting themselves and their life at risk. It was just who she was-the way she chose to be.

Alenko and the quarian had accompanied her on the buy. She played it straight and brought Chellick his evidence and proximity recording. The officer had secured the video of the exchange and swore that Jenna had already been pulled out of the club.  _Now he just has to hope that no one realizes what she was doing there_ , Shepard thought as they left the Citadel Security suites and entered the building's atrium.

Running around with Alenko and Tali was like getting a crash course in combat engineering, software design, and hacking, though too often Shepard found herself drowning in the tech. She tried to listen and keep up with all of it, but no matter the topic, the two of them always reached a point that made the commander feel like a confused child trying to read ancient Greek. It had been the same when they were discussing, signal boosting omnitool ranges as they strolled toward the elevator in Citadel Security.

It was fairly clear she would need a different approach to deal with General Septimus Oraka. Despite Williams' correct assessment that Shepard wasn't one for rescuing whores. The commander was more concerned about other things, namely the consort's information trade.

Given Septimus' position Nyx asked Tali if she would not mind too much if Garrus tagged along. The quarian had waved the commander's concern off and said she had a few things she needed to take care of on the Citadel before they put out. This trip through the wards was much quieter, Garrus was still getting a feel for the humans and how to approach them. It reminded her of the first few days she knew Marric Toran, her liaison from her turian training exchange.

When she, Vakarian, and the lieutenant arrived at the strip club, she started by trying to talk General Septimus Oraka down. She should have realized that would not work. Her experience with turians was vast compared to some of her species, but she knew that it was still highly limited, and her experience with lovesick turians, even more so. After the initial hitch, she and Garrus opted for appealing to his since of honor.

_There we go_ , she could not help but think, when he came around.

Oraka's shoulders squared back up and he seemed more like a stereotypical turian when he handed her a datapad and all but demanded a favor. Shepard chuckled when he detailed out the information. With a quick glance to her right she noticed the slight smile of recognition on Alenko's face. Septimus' favor brought her full circle. The Elcor diplomat was ecstatic, or so he said, when the human delivered the information he was accusing the asari consort of leaking. When they walked out of the embassy, Kaidan was watching her, and she noticed it.

"What?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I've never seen anyone take that kind of interest."

"I overheard something about an intel leak that could affect the stability of multiple colonies, possibly put colonists at risk. So, I thought I'd look into it." She made it sound completely innocent and exactly what anyone else would have done, because that was how she saw it.

"Precisely," he said with a trace of surprise in his voice

She smiled and agreed. "Precisely."

The lieutenant was obviously taken aback by her willingness to get involved. She guessed that even as a Spectre it might seem beyond the scope of what was required of her. But that was not the reason she why she did it. She felt her answer to Kaidan captured her motivations, her concern for the colonies and the citizens there that could have been affected by whatever Septimus had gotten a hold of. Her concern was for those who could not fight what could be coming.

With that thought it struck her. That was what Nihlus had been doing on Eden Prime. That was what she was being tasked with as a Spectre: chasing down Saren, bring him in, trying to reign in his geth, and stopping whatever this Reaper threat might be. It was the same on Elysium, on Anhur: she had helped people-kids, civilians, soldiers alike-protected them all from a force they could not deal with on their own. This was the same work she had always done, just on a whole new scale.

As she strolled across the Presidium there was a new lightness to her step, the weight was still pressing down on her, but she had found herself a foundation. A place she could move from and come back to when it all seemed too much. The two men with her balked for a moment when she slipped through the entrance to the Consort's establishment and Nelyna directed them to Sha'ira's suite for a second time.

  
****viii.** **

* * *

From the moment they entered the building things seemed surreal. The overwhelming scent of incense, the temperature that was about five degrees too high,  _but that might be to compensate for the_ … Alenko stopped the thought before it finished. They all knew what this place was, when you got to the bare bones of it; what the consort and her apprentices were. Ashley was right.  _Many things to many people_ ,  _it was a poetic way of not calling herself what she was_. Even Fredericks had not been able to explain it all away. She might be many things to many people, but for a lot of those people she was a really expensive sure thing.

Kaidan and Garrus exchanged a look, as they followed Shepard up the stairs, and again when the asari liquidly moved toward the commander. As Shepard visibly tensed at the contact initiated by the alien, neither male was particularly certain what was happening, and became even less so when she bestowed the gift of words.

_What does that even mean_ , Kaidan thought as he watched with rapt interest.

Sha'ira touched Shepard's face softly, gazing into the human's eyes with great admiration as she spoke. Kaidan felt his jaw tighten, as the reaction of the commander seemed to align with his. Shepard seemed uncomfortable with a veritable stranger writhing against her and touching her so intimately. The lieutenant could not help the acidic nature of his thoughts in that moment, nor the little twinge of jealousy he had no right to claim. Shepard was his commanding officer,  _nothing more. Control yourself, Alenko_. His flexed and released his fists at his side a few times and tried to relax.

"I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you. I see the sadness behind your eyes. It tells a story that makes me want to weep. Pain and loss. But it drives you. I see you."

The asari held Shepard's face in both her hands, closing the little remaining distance between them, and gazing intently into the marine's darker blue eyes, and continued, "Your uniform fits you as though you were born wearing it. You are a soldier through and through. Proud, solitary... alone."

The movement was sharp and short. Sha'ira looked at Kaidan for a moment before returning her gaze to the commander. With a quick glance to his left Alenko was aware that he was not the only one to notice. Garrus looked at him for a moment, then both men turned their attention back to the highly intimate display being played out in front of them.

"But all this gives you strength. Your strength is what has kept you alive, what made you survive. You will continue to survive. You do not hide your strength and it serves you well. Terrifies your foes. Few will dare stand against you. It is that same strength people are drawn to. It is why you lead and others follow without question. You'll need that leadership in the battle to come." Sha'ira stroked Shepard's cheeks with her thumbs then kissed her lightly on the lips, lingering for a moment. With that she loosed the officer's face and took a step back as she took Shepard's hand in both of hers. "A small token, and my sincerest gratitude for your assistance."

"You're very welcome. And thank you," the commander replied, with a shocking amount of politeness.

Shepard turned and walked past her two associates who were freely staring at her until she passed them, then their gaze moved to the asari. "Good day, gentlemen," Sha'ira stated with finality. The two men's heads cleared and they hurried down the stairs to catch the commander.

The officer was standing near the glass fence at the edge of the water looking at the token. She slipped it into her pocket as her team caught up with her. When she looked up at them, a crooked smile painted her lips and was accompanied by a playful look in her eyes.

"Well, I'll be damned, Shepard," Vakarian began. "That was… something else."

"Yeah, well. That's one way to describe it," the commander agreed.

Garrus shifted his weight in a way that revealed he had something on his mind. Shepard looked at him until he finally said it. "Look, I know this is strange. But I've been investigating Saren for a long time and I'd really like to help take him down. I thought with you being a Spectre and all, you could use a little sniper fire power. My scores are off the chart."

The smile widened as she held up her hand to halt the litany they all figured he had prepared. She had seen what she needed to see. And part of her was glad she did not have to ask him to sign on.

"Same rules apply. You follow my lead. No pulling a Wrex and shooting prisoners in the face."

Garrus gave one sharp nod as he chuckled and shook her hand.

"Welcome aboard," Alenko said, shaking the turian's hand.

"Guess that makes three. Meet Wrex, Tali, and I at the dock in three hours with whatever gear you have and we'll get you settled in," Shepard ordered.

Out of the corner of his eye Alenko noticed the twitch of the turian's mandibles.

"Will do, Commander."

The two Alliance officers watched the turian trot off at a pace just shy of a run. "Where's this leave our marine detail?" the Lieutenant asked, still looking at the turian.

Shepard folded her arms over her chest as she leaned against the balustrade and crossed her ankles. The deep labored breath told him all he needed to know. "Did you have a chance to read the dossiers intel sent over on Wrex and Garrus?"

The Lieutenant nodded.

"We don't have anyone that can touch that on the detail. And our mission just changed starkly. We've already lost one to Saren and his geth. And in total honesty, that team is too green to go up against what we're facing now."

He could see it in her eyes, she did not want things to be this way. But she also did not want to lose anyone else to this thing. And neither did he.

"I agree, but what are we going to do?"

"Give them the choice?" she shrugged.

He did not give her an answer, did not really have one to give. For him it was a no-brainer. He would not walk, and from what he knew of the remaining members of the detail they would not give up the chance to serve with Shepard, and that was before she became the first human Spectre.

"This isn't a cut and dried situation. There's not an answer for this sort of thing in the regs. If they want to transfer out, I'll sign off and leave them here. Or they can take modified duty for the tour. If need be I'll call in some favors and get them a nice posting with lots of weapons fire and explosive potential," she added.

Kaidan smiled and looked at her incredulously for a moment. "Do you really think anyone would transfer off the vessel of the first human Spectre?"

Shepard just laughed and shook her head. "Offer it anyway. Let them know I'll take care of them if they want it."

"You want  _me_  to offer it?"

A quick nod. "That way they won't feel like they are offending me if they choose to walk. It'll be easier for them to make the choice that's right for them that way."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

Shepard looked down at her boots for a moment. There was a barely visible scuff on the toe that seemed to be the focus of her attention in that instance.

"The same applies to you, Lieutenant. If you'd like to walk-" She looked back up at him and, for one of the first times he could recall since he met her, her eyes were suddenly unreadable, almost devoid.

He knew it had to be intentional, she did not want to influence his choice, did not want him to know her opinion before he made his choice. He shifted slightly, uncrossing his arms and setting them on his hips as he took a moment to contemplate the scuff mark on the toe of her boot. When he looked back up at her, he watched her carefully for a minute before he spoke.

"Well, it's like I said. I'd be crazy or stupid to walk away from the first cruise of any Spectre." When he said it, he saw a flash of something in her eyes and the wall that the consort mentioned seemed to go back down.  _It's almost like watching a biotic barrier fade_. "And besides that it's been a long time since I've had a C-O who wasn't scared to death of me. It's kind of nice to just be the staff lieutenant instead of  _that biotic_."

"Been there a time or two myself," she divulged quickly with a relaxed smile.

She held her hand out to him and when he reached for it she grabbed his forearm tightly. The commander smacked him on the shoulder and added, "Good to know you're still on board despite all the mythology it looks like we'll be chasing."

"I'm in it for the long haul," Kaidan replied, still studying her responses to what he said.

There seemed to be relief in the look she gave him. And there was relief for him there too, relief that she was pleased that he intended to remain on the  _Normandy_.  _Or maybe that's just what you want to believe_ , he corrected himself as she loosed his arm.


	9. Outside Looking In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The change of command for the Normandy was smoother than most expected, including Shepard. Prepping a ship for active duty usually involved a longer turn around. Her suspicions are confirmed by her friend and mentor Captain Anderson, who basically confirms her suspicions that there was more to all of it than she had been told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acknowledgements: I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers-xforeverquotex and my paramour. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece.
> 
> Disclaimer: Mass Effect belongs to Bioware, I'm only playing with their universe. I do not own the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. I do it for the love of the game, the world, and the characters; and because they stuck with me long after I turned the game off (and back on, and off, ad infinitum).

**09 Outside Looking In**

  
****i.** **

* * *

The crew of the  _Normandy_  worked overtime to shift gears from shakedown cruise to active duty load out. Every member of her initial ground team opted to stay and Alenko had sold it hard, though Shepard kind of wished he had not. If they chose to stay she wanted them to do so on their own terms and not be swayed by anyone else. With the combination of their new mission and the experienced operators that had joined the crew, she knew that the squad she had previously been trying to train would not see much if any action on this cruise. After Eden Prime, the commander knew the situation was only bound to get hairier now that the Council had actually stepped in and put Saren on the run.

The staff lieutenant had called it accurately though. Sitting in the cockpit with Joker she had overheard the conversation that took place in the comm room, though Nyx had threatened the pilot with a uniquely devised kind of torture if he breathed even a syllable of their eavesdropping to anyone. In the end she was surprised. There hadn't even the slightest hint of hesitation in the squad's responses. McMillan and Crosby had been the most adamant about remaining. Crosby even offered to wash dishes but refused to leave the crew unless someone physically ejected him out of the airlock.

With that statement Joker at looked at her and thoughtfully stroked his raggedy chin whiskers; he'd started growing it out again when command changed and it was still at the early, scruffy, out of control stage. He and Crosby had a playful love-hate relationship and usually gave each other a hard time whenever Crosby was assigned to bridge security.

"Guess they like you, Commander," Joker declared with a wink.

"Looks like," Shepard noted as she climbed out of the co-pilot's chair. She could tell that the meeting was coming to a close and she didn't want anyone to even suspect she'd overheard the discussion. "Close the channel. And just remember our deal."

"How did your threat of bodily harm against me become  _our_  deal?"

She winked at him and patted the top of his chair. "I bet the krogan would have some great input on that."

"Yeah. Thanks, Commander," Joker sarcastically shot back.

She was on the stairs when she heard the rabble pour out into the CIC, but she ducked into the observation deck before anyone else moved toward the crew deck. Even before the switch Shepard usually spent a few hours in the evening focusing on the administrative requirements of her posting, but now she had additional duties that required her attention with her promotion to commanding officer of the  _Normandy_  and her appointment as a Council Spectre, which was what she turned her attention to at that moment. But she was quickly becoming overwhelmed with the requirements of the latter, at least initially.

When she crossed the crew deck in search of her third cup of coffee in a little more than an hour, Kaidan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he watched her. As she walked back toward her hideout, she caught him staring.

"What?" she asked innocently.

"What are you doing that requires that much coffee?"

She laughed brightly, letting her head fall back. "I swear, if I'd known being a Spectre involved this much paperwork, I might have said no."

"Liar."

She tried to look scandalized at the quick accusation, but instead it merely came off as slightly amused. Shepard walked over and rested her knee on the railing. "I think the salarians are to blame." Her tone was secretive.

Kaidan set the datapad he had been reading on the chair next to him. "How so?"

"There is a form for everything. And I'm still working on the information paperwork. They want a secure channel locator. There are expense reports, travel itineraries, after action documentation that will make me want to stab someone with a dull rusty spoon." She slipped into a chair across from him, tucking her legs up beneath her. " _And_  they want retroactive reports on our evidentiary investigation into Saren- _all_  action taken during that mission. At the turian councilor's request, of course." She shook her head, her preoccupation clear.

He just smiled, observing her. "I take it you're almost all official then?"

"Mostly. Waiting on clearance from the Alliance to install the Council's communication scrambler. They want their own tech aboard so they can verify my transmissions by a certain signal identifier." She considered going into the details she'd read in the request, but waved the thought away; the tech details always seemed to escape her. She wasn't completely technologically inept, but she knew where her strengths lay and where they were merely mediocre.

"Damn. Bet Hackett and the fleet are just chomping at the bit to accommodate that."

Shepard's brow furrowed. "He's, surprisingly, taking it all in stride. I'm starting to think I'm the only person in this chain of command that didn't have a clue what they were walking into."

Kaidan's expression mimicked her own confusion. "How so?"

"I got pulled off a moon. Escorted to Arcturus and told to report a little more than twelve hours before the  _Normandy_  put out."

"Really?" He leaned forward, clearly surprised by the revelation.

"Hit the station met with Hackett and my command CO. And wham, bam, I'm suddenly a line officer. Shortest orders I've ever gotten," she volunteered, sipping her coffee then staring into the mug.

He was looking at her in that way which made her mind go sluggish, like she fascinated him.  _You need to go back under your rock_ , she told herself, realizing that this was simply too easy. He was like a honey trap, so easy to just talk to and be around, so comfortable until she said or did the wrong thing that would set her on an irrecoverable trajectory.

"Usually there was at least a contact or commanding officer, usually a rundown of some sort. And of course there was almost always a line or two about bringing lots of weapons and ammunition. Maybe some explosives." The two shared a chuckle before she stood. "I'll let you get back to it, L-T," she noted with a glance at whatever he'd been reading when she let herself become distracted.

"Don't let the paperwork get to you, Commander."

She offered a small you-got-it wave as she rounded the corner. Her saving grace was her inability to become unhinged. It was one of the keys to her career success. Shepard had come to embody the mantra: improvise, adapt, overcome. Her whole career was dedicated to finding the way through, making the right call.

But Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was not like anything she'd come up against before. This wasn't the type of encounter that strategy, luck, or ammo could whittle down. . Nothing in her career or her training told her how she was supposed to prepare for encounters of the amiable, scrupulous, courteous kind with a gentlemanly subordinate officer. He was the only person she'd ever met that made her flare-she knew it was a mix of nerves, surprise, and who knows what else, but it had been obvious that he'd noticed it as well when they were finally introduced.

Shepard pressed her hand to her forehead trying to suppress the memory of the girlish slip. Nothing flustered her, until him. In a look he could make her lose her train of thought.  _And that smile_ , she caught herself before the wistful little sigh escaped her lips.  _Goddamn it Nyx. Act your age, or at least your rank,_  she scolded as she leaned against the bulkhead for a moment, shaking her head.

_How does he manage it?_ In a moment he could wiggle comfortably past her defenses, get under her skin, and addle her brain. And that was just in conversation, when he slipped or she did, when he let her see a glimpse of what she thought was interest-her pulse raced and then her stomach would flip.  _This is not behavior becoming of an officer_ , she thought in an attempt to regain some control over her rebellious thoughts which all seemed wholly centered where there should not be.

Merely hoping the distraction would dissipate was failing miserably. With a guarded glance over her shoulder, she regarded him as covertly as she could manage. He was too good an officer to lose, and she couldn't justify possibly black-marking his career over a fling. She knew that her career would be marked as well. Though even if she were discharged from the Alliance over what she was starting to believe were mutual feelings, her position as a Spectre was not in danger and could allow her service to continue rather unaffected.

Shepard turned toward the heavy footfalls bounding down the stairs, as Williams came to a startling halt a few feet from her.

"Hey Commander, got a minute?" There was weightiness to the Chief's voice that pushed the previous thoughts to the back of Nyx's head and offered her mind a welcome reprieve from the problem she had no answer for.

"Sure thing, Chief. Come on in."

Crossing the brightly lit Obs, neither of the females spoke. Shepard grimaced at the table that was now boasting two appropriated consoles and more datapads than she really wanted to think too hard about, then moved over to the sofa not far from the door. Ashley sat a few feet from the commander, who watched the younger soldier as she shifted several times trying to find a position that suited her. The anxiety was clear to Nyx who initially just waited, giving Williams time to find the words and her voice.

"Look, C-O." She shook her head and leaned forward, looking at her clasped hands. "Shepard I just … I wanted to thank you for what you did today. And for what you let me do. It meant a lot. Means a lot. "

Ashley's eyes rose slightly and Nyx could easily read the gratitude as well as the deep grief.

"I knew Serviceman Bhatia. Nirali. There were only four women in our unit so we got to be pretty close. It was …" Ashley shot off the couch and strode to the window that looked out at the view that had fascinated the young woman since their approach to the Citadel. "I've never had a lot of friends. Nirali was one of the few that really knew me. She didn't care about-"

Williams leaned on the glass and went silent.

Shepard moved quietly and stood next to the Chief, laying a hand on her shoulder. "It's never easy to lose people. It's even harder when it's someone close to us."

"She was my friend, and I couldn't save her."

"No, but you brought her home. Sometimes that is all we can do," Nyx comforted. Shepard had been in the same place the chief was in, and she'd been the one arguing for remains in the past as well. Deep down, there was a part of her that was relieved she had been able to convince Bosker to man up and send the woman's body home. She also knew it was a double-edged sword.  _The research_  … Nyx shook her head.  _No. It didn't matter. It wasn't worth the pain. Bhatia had served well and proud. It was time to go home._

The commander was initially taken aback when William's shoulder pressed against her. She glanced over and saw the streaks on her cheeks. Nyx moved her hand to Ashley's other shoulder and squeezed it lightly. Neither one of them were gushy women, and anything more than that type of measured reaction would have probably made the commander retreat to a safe distance. But this pain Shepard knew and she knew how to respond to a refined exhibition of sorrow. They just stood there, Ashley leaning against Nyx, and the officer with her arm across the chief's shoulder.

Several minutes later, Williams straightened again and Shepard removed her hand as the chief turned away, sniffling a few times as she swiped her hands across her cheeks, removing any trace.

"I've been there. And I've been where you were today," Shepard disclosed, her eyes skimming the lights and structures beyond the window.

"Thank you, Shepard."

The commander nodded.

"I needed to do that, for her. Maybe even a little bit for me." Ashley moved toward the door. "And I really appreciate you talking to Bosker. He probably would have had my stripes, if I'd said what I wanted to say," Ashley revealed.

"Anytime." Shepard replied as she turned and leaned against the cool glass.

"Anyway. I should get back to what I was doing."

"I won't keep you."

Before Ashley hit the door, the officer slipped into a chair at the overloaded table. "On another note, Chief, I got a recommendation this afternoon I needed to ask you about. Seems the ship set out for shakedown without a Command Chief and your name was put forth."

"Me?" the Gunnery Chief asked, taking a quick step back into the room. Shepard just nodded. "But I just joined the crew. You've got like three of Chiefs-"

"Is that a 'no'?" Shepard looked over at her.

"No, ma'am. It's not," Williams replied sharply. "I just thought…"

Shepard took a long sip of her coffee and watched the chief closely. "So?"

"Can I think about it?"

"I need to know before we put out to cruise. Dismissed."

The commander set the mug back on the table and returned her attention to the console on her left. She heard the familiar click of the chief's heels as she snapped to attention just before she slipped out the door. Shepard just smiled at her screen. That was one more item to check off the list. She knew Williams would take the position; Ashley just needed time to wrap her head around the idea of it all. Shepard was heartily aware of the fact that she was not the only one experiencing some growing pains with this new assignment and mission-Williams, Alenko, most of the crew, and even the contacts she'd made on the Citadel were feeling the impact of everything happening around them and the pace at which it was all swirling about..

The commander had gotten a similar reaction when she offered her old post to Navigator Pressly. He'd stared blankly at her for some time then blinked quickly as his mouth moved for a moment with nothing coming out. He'd snapped it shut and nodded sharply once. She'd clapped him on the shoulder and they traded salutes. She chose Pressly for two reasons: one, his posting as navigator kept him on the bridge rather than below decks and it would keep him on the ship. Her second reason was a little more devious. She remembered the opinion on turians that he'd shared with her before Eden Prime and she knew that being the executive officer on  _this_  boat, on  _this_  cruise, would put him in the position of having to deal with turians, and the rest of the aliens she'd pulled into her crew. In a way she was hoping the cruise might open Pressly's horizons, though it was not an issue she could force. Shepard was sure anyone with even the barest hint of xenophobia was going to have to quickly work it out on this ship, because that was not something she was going to tolerate.

  
****ii.** **

* * *

_Normandy_ 's change in command wasn't a surprise to everyone on the crew. Dr. Karin Chakwas, the ship's medical officer, hadn't been as surprised as she probably should have been. She'd known Anderson for years and even served under his command previously. In that instance, the captain had made his quarters clearly his own. There were photos and knick knacks, mementos from his career. It was a place that was his. Nothing like that had happened on the  _Normandy_. The Captain's Quarters on this vessel were barren.

It was a silly reason taken on its own. But given other clues: the Spectre's presence, the very nature of the vessel itself, the identity of the XO-the second in command. Karin had come to the conclusion that there was something in store for the  _Normandy_  that had yet to be disclosed. It also explained why an officer like Charles Pressly was assigned as the Navigator, while it had been where his career led him; it was a step down from his last assignment.

She ducked out of the medbay and into the mess hall to prepare a cup of tea, on her return she noticed Shepard crossing the deck toward her for their requisite daily visit. The ship's medical officer had been strict with Shepard since Eden Prime and scanned her on a daily basis for any abnormal developments, of which there had been none thus far, though she had noticed signs of the commander's sleeping troubles.

"So, Doc," Shepard asked from her perch on one of the beds in the center of the room, "when are we going to be done with these daily visits?"

Chakwas leaned against the edge of her desk and scowled at the commander. "When I'm satisfied that you're not experiencing any negative symptoms. We don't know what that device was or what it might have done to you. Your neurological functions seem to be fine, and, sadly, your personality remains intact." Shepard shook her head and laughed lightly at the doctor's assessment. "But some of the readings are still abnormal. And I think that's worth keeping an eye on."

"You do remember me, right?" the commander quipped.

Karen shook her head and chuckled. She'd met the commander for the first time after Elysium. And since then Shepard had passed through her medbay doors a handful of times. The commander could be a pain in the ass to medical staff, but even when she was arguing with them she still respected their opinions, even if she didn't always follow them to the letter. Chakwas guessed that was likely a trait drilled into Shepard's head by her father, Taranis Shepard, who had started his career as a combat medic before moving to the line.

"Look. You give me a list of symptoms to watch out for, and I'll keep you informed. But this daily scan is getting tedious. And more tediousness I don't need more of right now," Nyx admitted with a look that suggested the truth of the situation the officer was in.

The strain was visible, though Chakwas knew that there was more beneath the surface. She'd seen it before, not only in Shepard, but in a lot of operators and officers. There was the officer and the leader, then there was the mere mortal beneath the carefully and precisely crafted persona. Usually there were shades of each in the other, but they were not always exactly the same person. The face that most people saw masked a lot of things.

The doctor stared at her for a few moments. "Fine. Weekly scans. And you tell me if you get any neurological symptoms: tingling, weakness, blurry vision, dizziness, headaches." When Shepard raised her hand, Chakwas added, "Yes, even if you think the dizziness is a 'biotic thing'-you are on my table. And I mean any headache. No, self diagnosing. I'm the one with the medical license."

The commander held up her hands in surrender. "Aye, aye, ma'am."

"That's what I like to hear." Chakwas turned to her desk. When Shepard hopped down, the older officer informed the commander of another matter.

"Thanks, Doc," Shepard said with a nod. The commander started for the door and stopped, turning around in the open doorway. "Let Pressly know if you need anything special for our newest crew members. Looks like they'll be with us for a while."

The doctor nodded and immediately returned to her desk. She had spoken with Tali and Garrus about individual specific needs. Officer Vakarian had been so thorough as to bring her a complete copy of his medical history, all three data pads brimmed with it; though he had collated each for specific periods of his life: one for childhood, military service (mandatory among all turians), and concluding with another from the point he applied to Citadel Security. Tali was a little less detailed and informed the doctor quite politely that she was more than capable of administering her own basic medical care. At the same time the quarian did provide a list of a few things that would need to be kept on hand in the case of an emergency.

The krogan, however, was another matter. He hadn't even been near the medical bay and when she attempted to speak with him, he'd ducked out of the cargo bay and escaped through the service docking sleeve. That particular response left her doing her own research, and it was fairly scant. Finally she was able to get in contact with salarian on the Citadel who treated numerous krogan and he offered her some healthy advice. Though Chakwas had to admit that his suggestion to have someone shoot the alien with a tranquilizer dart before attempting any medical procedure seemed a bit extreme, she had requested some powerful sedatives, in case the need arose.

  
****iii.** **

* * *

Looking out at the ward arms, she couldn't help but hear the awestruck ways her squad had responded to their first sight of the Citadel repeat in her head as she stood in the same spot. In a lot of ways it was also the first time Lieutenant Commander Nyx Shepard had really seen the station, despite her previous visits. As was often the case, she'd always been so focused on her mission-where she had to be, what she had to do-that she sometimes overlooked where she was, what was immediately around her. It was rare that Nyx ever just took a moment to stop and look around her.

It hadn't been like that in the beginning. There were still things about her life and her work that drew her fascination, but early on it had been much more widespread. She was a bit of a transcendentalist at heart and saw great beauty and power in the natural spaces around her, though she could also find it elsewhere-in the hull design of a beautiful ship, in the expansive skyline of a bustling city. But perhaps years of running through all sorts of landscapes had jaded her a bit. Too often when she looked around her now, she saw escape routes, high ground, improvised weapons, and choke points. She saw they ways the landscape natural or designed could conspire with her enemies. She missed the light, the life, the wonder that had drawn her to space and the Alliance in the first place.

A wistful smile painted her lips as she leaned on the retaining wall. She blamed Williams, blessedly. Her crew had drawn her attention away from the mission at hand for a brief moment. In that moment they'd given her permission to deviate from the plan, to lend importance to something that she would generally overlook-the wonder around her.

As a girl she'd been mesmerized by the stars. Her mother, Hannah, claimed it was because she was born in space nearly four weeks early. Her father always joked it was because Nyx was meant for the stars. But part of her knew it was just one of the ways he had developed to answer the questions about why she wasn't living with relatives on Earth or in a colony. The Shepards had wanted their daughter with one or both of them as much as possible, which meant that as a girl she spent her time on space stations and Alliance vessels throughout space.

Her father had been the one to sacrifice his career for his family, but he was also the one that demanded his girl be with one of them. Hannah Shepard had been fine with Nyx growing up on Earth moving between relatives while Hannah and her husband were on cruise. Taranis Shepard, however, had grown up like that, rarely seeing his parents, always feeling out of place and alone. And he didn't want to do that to his child.

There had been times, when he wondered if her growing up as a spacer kid wasn't just as bad. Taranis and Nyx had talked about it once, after she's joined the Alliance. But Nyx had just shrugged it off. "It's what I knew. Sure, it wasn't perfect. But I wouldn't change it. And you were always there, even when I didn't want it," she'd told him with a grinning laugh.

He'd just hugged her tightly and apologized that she didn't get a normal life.

"I'm not cut out for normal, Da. Even if you had been stationed ground-side we still would have moved around like Lin's pop. They never spent more than a few years in the same place. At least, we got a better view."

They never really talked about it again after that, Nyx knew her father still felt a little guilty about the way she'd grown up; he felt he was being selfish and that his and Hannah's work had impacted their daughter's life. While it certainly had impacted the girl, there really was no way to avoid that, though to be fair, Nyx never really viewed that impact negatively. She had friends growing up, but she also got a childhood that few others did.

She met her first alien at eight, talked to her first N7 when she was ten, and took shooting lessons from a security chief with a sniper tab. Even when she was the only kid on the ship, Shepard enjoyed it because those were the times Taranis would set out extra special time for his daughter-they had their rituals that happened every tour-but when there weren't other kids, he made extra concessions for Nyx and that time meant a lot to her then and as she grew older.

But after several years spent at a breakneck operational tempo Shepard had forgotten some of the reasons she joined the Alliance in the first place. Yes, it was a place where her biotic potential wasn't quite so paralyzing to her career. Yes, she wanted to follow in the family business-the Shepard and O'Rourke families had long and storied military lineages. But mostly, she wanted to see the stars, visit other worlds, meet people and aliens, and help how and where she could. She saw the beauty in the galaxy and wanted to help protect it; and for her the way to do that was as part of the Alliance. And she had reached her apex goal, the most out of reach dream she could have for her career, seven years earlier when she completed training for her N7 commission.

Some of those seemingly old, forgotten memories and ideas came bubbling back to the surface as she stood alone at the observation area in the wards. The Citadel stretched out in front of her, a symbol for all the races part of the galactic community. In that moment it felt like an anchor holding her steady in the tumultuous buffeting. Everything in Shepard's life seemed to have shifted. It had been quaking for months, but with the Spectre commission her world had opened up and she was clinging to the edge of the chasm trying to maintain.

  
****iv.** **

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Shepard straightened and glanced over her shoulder when she heard his footsteps, offering a strained smile to her old friend and commanding officer, or at least he would be her direct CO for a few more days.

"Commander," David Anderson said as he leaned next to her and looked out at the station beyond the glass.

"Captain."

"It's something isn't it? This station, all these aliens. Yet somehow it all works." He noted as he leaned on the retaining wall and gazed out past the overlook.

Shepard just watched him, they both knew he had something to say, or he would not have been willing to meet her on the wards at 0500.

"It works here and on Earth because of people like you," he stated turning his head in her direction and looking down at her.

"And you," she replied.

He laughed. "Maybe." He looked back out on the magnificent view. "So why did you call me in the middle of the night, Shepard?"

Anderson suspected he knew the reason, and if he was right he was prepared for the conversation. Even if he was wrong the why of it, they both knew this wasn't a social call, though there was nothing official about the meeting either. Shepard had no way of knowing that David had been preparing for this conversation even before her reassignment to the boat. Thankfully, Admiral Hackett had finally cleared full disclosure after the Council gave her the nod.

She grimaced as she looked down at her boot, the toe of which she was tapping against the wall. "I need to know," she admitted as she glanced over at the man she'd known since she was a gangly girl hiding out on cargo decks to get a glimpse of her future, while hiding out from overbearing boys. "Was I the only one who didn't know?"

He laughed raucously but said nothing.

"I mean we both know you don't fully compliment a shakedown cruise, and an official change of command takes more than five days," she observed stoically.

"It was above your pay grade, Shepard."

"So this was all planned?"

He shrugged. "More or less, though it didn't go the way we thought." He looked over at her and found she was studying him. "The  _Normandy_  was never my ship, Shepard. Not really. She was originally tasked to Elli Zander's command, who was relieved a few months after we got word that we might have the chance at getting another human in the Spectres, but that was merely a coincidence. She lost the command for other reasons."

Anderson straightened and looked around them, then with a tip of his head the two started walking. "I was assigned command when the brass made their decision about who they were going to groom," he said carefully.

"Groom? Is that why Seven hadn't seen leave in a year and a half?"

Anderson nodded and Shepard shook her head. "One of them."

"You know I had two people rotate out because the pace was too much? Shit," She placed her hands on her hips and searched the whirling pattern in the tiles beneath her feet as she tried to wrap her head around this new twist. He knew her well enough to know that the magnitude of it was a little overwhelming, even if she'd suspected the truth of it all.

"Hell! How do you think I feel? I spent eighteen months babysitting your boat." He'd meant it as a joke, but she'd seen the seriousness of the situation.

"You crewed her well," she said, stopping their progress.

"And I'd do it again, Shepard." He touched her arm and she looked up at him. "I'd do it again a dozen times over. I meant what I said. It's the perfect ship for a Spectre, and she has the best crew I could pull together because to play both sides of the field, you're going to need all the help you can get. This is not going to be easy. Some Spectres just work for the Council. You and I both know that's not going to be your lot."

She nodded. But stayed silent, he could see her playing it all out in her head, fitting the pieces together and trying to formulate her own plan for something that had been designed for her. For something she'd probably never choose for herself

"Command is going to keep calling on your team, like they've become accustomed to over the last since you put Seven together. And they are going to have bigger expectations, because you're a Spectre now. You'll have a little more leeway in some ways, but more scrutiny in others. The Council's going to judge you harshly because you're human. Some of the brass are going to scour for any chink they can find because you're associated with the Council now. But when it comes down to it-the Alliance is behind you, Commander. There are a lot of people rooting for you, supporting you."

"This is all just…"

"Overwhelming?"

She started walking again, each step was slow and deliberate, carefully placed.

"I know. That's another reason I'm here. We've worked together, we have a rapport, according to the brass. But I would have volunteered for this, kid, and you know it. I've known you too long to let you whip in the wind. Plus, your father would hunt me down and scoop out my liver with a spoon," David noted.

She laughed lightly. Her father respected Anderson, and the two men were still friends even though they hadn't served together in decades. David saw himself as lucky to have been one of the people that shaped the person she had become, both personally and professionally. Never had he merely been just a superior or a commanding officer to Shepard; he was family.

"And I was there too once, though I didn't go the distance." There was a bitter twinge in his voice. He had already told her about his chance at becoming the first human Spectre and neither were going to dredge it back up. "But you're right, everything was in place for the transfer of command and to operational status before you were even officially assigned to the  _Normandy_. But it did happen a little faster than anyone expected."

Nyx was feeling the weight of it, of people guiding and directing her career toward a path she didn't even know she was a possibility before the mantle was placed on her, and Anderson could see it weighing on her. He'd been part of one of the first squads to reach Elysium, he'd been the one to relieve her from the position she'd held and they had teamed up on missions after that to secure Elysium and the staging areas in the system. He had seen her under this kind of strain before, but only a few times in her life.

"How did they even know I'd do it?" Shepard finally asked.

"Because you're you."

She looked at him sharply.

"They talked to your people, some more candidly than others. Hackett asked me point blank and I told him there was no way you'd turn it down," Anderson admitted, claiming his own complicity in her current predicament.

"Why?"

"Elysium."

This time he stopped. He put his hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes for a long moment, reading the questions skimming across the azure sea of her irises.

"The woman- No. The  _soldier_  that held that position, who protected those civilians, who nearly killed herself for her men. That soldier would never say, 'No. I won't stand up to protect those who can't fight for themselves.' That soldier could only ever step forward and accept the type of responsibility the Council places on a Spectre."

He could see the shift, there were still questions, but there was resolve and determination. And that was one of the things that made Shepard the officer she was. She was skilled, powerful, and well-trained, but on top of it all, beyond everything else she was determined. The commander always found a way.

"You  _are_  a Spectre, Shepard. It's like Nihlus said, he recommended you because he knew you could do the job, not because you're human. The Spectres don't care about the vital statistics of a person-just that you're the right one to get it done. And they are damn lucky to have you. Even if they don't realize it yet."

Shaking her head, she chuckled as she looked over at him. David saw what few people ever got to see-the mortal. "I just hope I can pull it off," she replied.

He slid his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her once before guiding her back toward the viewpoint where he had met her. "Well, hope all you want. I have faith in you, Nyx. Why else do you think I volunteered to hold onto the keys to your first command for you?"

"Thanks, David. I mean it."

"No need to thank me. Just get out there and do what you do best."

"Blow shit up?" she asked with a laugh.

He shook his head, recalling the reference. It was the same response she had given him when he asked her why she was taking a commission to special operations. He didn't buy it then; he knew she was taking the spot offered to her for deeper, more personal reasons than career advancement or the chance to access heavy ordinance.

"Precisely." He stood in front of her with his hands on both her shoulders. "You have a good ship, a great crew, and the squad you've pulled together-well, you were always good at bringing out the best in your people. I've got your back, no matter what."

She smiled at him, and he could see traces of relief. It was strange to think that this had all been worked out before she knew anything about it.

"Same here, Anderson." She snapped to attention and saluted him.

He returned it, then winked at her. "Since I'm still your CO for a few more days, what are the chances you would comply with orders to get some rest?"

"Slim to none."

"About what I figured," he replied with a laugh.

"But I could pretend the message broke up in transmission," the commander noted with a raise of her eyebrows. "If it makes you feel better?" She bumped his shoulder with her own and stood close to him for a minute shoulder-to-shoulder, like when they would sit on the edges of the crates in the bay when she was a kid.

"You know when I found that skinny blonde girl tucked up on top of those crates in the cargo bay I could never have imagined all this for you."

"Well, she wouldn't be here if it weren't for people like Dad and you." Shepard bumped him again then started to walk away.

"And where are you off to?" he asked, glancing back at her.

She held her hands out widely with a big grin, walking backwards. "Just following orders, sir." He watched her as she spun around and descended down the stairs that led off toward Citadel Security and the docking area beyond that was home to the  _Normandy_  until he officially turned the ship over to her in a matter of days. He knew she wasn't going back to the  _Normandy_  to crawl back in her bunk, if she was indeed going back to the ship at all.

  
****v.** **

* * *

As she turned the corner into a corridor heading toward C-Sec she wasn't sure she was even heading back to the ship until she found herself on the dock. Anderson was right, the position she found herself in had become quite overwhelming. A little over a month earlier she was just another grubby operator ankle deep in intergalactic dust traipsing through some pirate hideout to stake out a waypoint in a smuggling operation. Then she had gotten some cryptic radio call, been placed on a new ship that just screamed N7, and wound up sharing trade secrets about alien takedowns with a turian Council Spectre.

Shepard figured her recommendation to and shot at a slot with the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance group had died with Nihlus Kryik on Eden Prime. But even after the turian councilor had reluctantly agreed to the approval of the human, she still hadn't really grasped what was happening. It wasn't a typical appointment ceremony. There was no pomp and circumstance. Just an oath and a mission-a promise and a goal.

Her eyes travelled along the familiar curve of the  _Normandy's_  hull. It was a little surreal to think that this had all been planned out in response to a mere recommendation. But, in a way, it was also inspiring to think that enough people had faith in her that they had laid out the preparations for the mere possibility of her becoming a Spectre.

She leaned against the gate and glanced over at the large green insectoid creature busily tapping at a console. "She's a fine ship, isn't she, bug boy?"

The commander nodded once to herself as she pulled a small silver wrapped package out of her pocket, ripping it open and taking a bite. "I remember when I first saw her. It reminded me of when I was little and built models with my Da. I just stared at her. Studying the lines, admiring the beauty the designers had crafted into this vehicle of destruction."

"She certainly is one of a kind."

Shepard stood and turned quickly, her hand instinctively moved to her side arm. "G'morning Lieutenant," she said with a relieved little smile when she saw Alenko leaning on a crate on the other side of the barrier.

Kaidan couldn't help return her smile as she relaxed again, retaking her previous position. "Didn't mean to startle you, ma'am."

"Nah," she grimaced; she couldn't believe she hadn't noticed him when she walked up the dock. "Just chatting up Keeper 47 here."

"Yeah. Noticed that." He held out the bottle of water to her as she tucked away the remainder of the bar she'd been snacking on. "Those things are like eating sand."

"Thanks."

She was glad he opted to turn his attention to her earlier topic of conversation. "But you're right. The  _Normandy_ 's a marvel. Fast, quiet, state of the art. She's a real powerhouse." He looked back at her with the last statement.

Nyx wasn't sure if it was the look in his eyes or the way he said it, or maybe she just wanted him to be talking about more than the ship. She swallowed at the little nervous lump that suddenly appeared in her throat.

"How are the preparations for the cruise going?" She opted to shift to a topic that would keep her mind firmly in the realm of the rational and professional, she hoped.

He shrugged. "Fine. Still waiting on Command approval for the Council's  _requests_."

"Yeah." She laughed lightly. "Figured that would be a hang up when I read it." She shook her head.  _B_ _ut when you get what you want you just have to take it as it comes_ , she thought as she looked over at the keeper who was still totally oblivious to the two humans on the dock.

"Most of the changeover is good. I think Pressly is still trying to get the medical and food supplies for the aliens. Wrex got invited to C-Sec for a chat about Fist."

Shepard stood and took a few steps before the pacing started. She looked upward and shook her head. "Yeah, I have to handle that in a few hours." Then she turned her eyes on him and Alenko met her gaze."What are you doing out here?"

"It's quiet. Figured I'd steal as much time off the boat as I could justify. From the sounds of everything, this is going to be a long cruise."

"You're telling me." She looked at the bottle of water on the bar then up at him. "I'll let you enjoy your solitude."

When she passed him, he reached out and touched her wrist. She turned toward him as he took at step toward her. She was too aware of his fingers still lingering on her skin when her eyes met his. "If there's anything I can do to help, Shepard. Let me know. Anything," he emphasized.

She looked at him for a long moment. She couldn't decide if she was reading more into this exchange given the insanity around her, but she erred on the side of caution considering her answer with great care. "Will do," she agreed.

When she reached the airlock she just leaned against the wall. Alenko was not something Nyx had been prepared for, and he was proving to be difficult to maneuver past. They'd met before either had any idea who the other was. And she'd been attracted to him from the start but she knew with everything; hell, even before everything, regs made him off limits. But he seemed to be trying her ability to withstand temptation. She just didn't know if it was unintentional or if he meant to be alluring.

  
****vi.** **

* * *

While on the Citadel Shepard found a pattern that seemed to work to combat the massiveness of everything weighing down on her. Increments seemed to work for her, taking things one measurable step at a time seemed less overwhelming than trying to approach the task presented to her in full. And that's how she chose to approach it. After spending an afternoon with Tali and Garrus tracking down some strange signal that was funneling credits from several sources on the Citadel, the three came across a self-aware, thieving AI with a grand plan to have itself installed in a ship to allow it to meet up with the geth.

"I can hack it," Tali swore as the AI threatened to take them all out with the self-destruct it primed when they arrived. And hack it she did. In less than six seconds, Tali broke through the security and disconnected the systems from the explosives, though the circuitry of the system still fried. "Hopefully it was arrogant enough to think I'd fail and didn't send a copy of itself anywhere beforehand."

"Well, it seemed stuck here since it implied it's been in this system for a while. Maybe the coder was smart enough to block its ability to transmit itself," Shepard agreed.

The quarian nodded. "Sounds feasible."

Garrus just looked from one to the other of them. "Are neither of you perturbed that a computer system just tried to murder us all?"

They both looked at him; Shepard laughed and Tali placed her hand delicately over her face mask. "Oh just wait until you meet the geth," the commander chided wryly. "Kill one and you'll swear he just whispered your name to all his buddies in the area when they turn and target you."

"You can't be serious?"

"She's completely serious," Tali said, patting his back lightly as she followed Shepard out of the back room on the Presidium.

The three of them made their way back across the station. They had been gathering a few last minute necessities before the  _Normandy_  put out, which Shepard expected to do just after the evening meal so that people could get one last real meal before having to live off whatever was in the mess. When they hit the market wards and a young woman ran over and hugged Shepard tightly.

"Thank you so much, Nyx," she said speaking quickly. "That information you sent me. Priceless. Epicly priceless. I owe you big time." The woman stopped for a moment and looked at the people with the marine she had met for the first time several years earlier.

"Emily Wong," Shepard said. "This is Garrus Vakarian and Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. Part of my crew."

"Damn girl. Get a little something-something and you're going to make the Alliance brass sweat."

"Emily and I used to be friends," Shepard added, to which the smaller woman slapped her playfully on the shoulder. "Ow! No need to get violent. You're still my favorite reporter."

"So, that would be why your first interview after becoming a Spectre was with Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani? That pretentious bitch."

"Damn, Emily. I think you've spent way too much time around Alliance soldiers."

The small woman smirked at Shepard. "Well, can she be anything less with that many names."

The commander shrugged. "And just so you know it wasn't my call. She ambushed me in a hallway and stuck her camera in my face. I decided to go for diplomatic rather than punching her out on tape."

"Probably a good call," the reporter mused. "Next time-"

"There will be no next time. You know how I feel about you people." Shepard meant journalists, especially guerilla reporters that would just grab someone without so much as a hello and start rolling.

"Mmhmm. I'll remember that."

"No, remember the data I gave you," Shepard corrected as she started to walk away.

Emily just laughed lightly as she headed off toward her office, while the  _Normandy_  crew turned toward the docks. The copy of the data from Fist's files had found its way to Emily's mailbox and her boss had been extremely pleased with the report it garnered. She might not be the face of the news yet, but hers were the stories that got reported and got wheels turning and balls rolling. She knew a fair amount of her success had come through the carefully developed friendship she shared with Commander Shepard. But she knew it was a two-way street. From time to time, Shepard had come to her for intel though by far Wong had received far more than she'd ever been asked for or given.

When Shepard, Garrus, and Tali got back to the ship, she'd suggested they head in without her. She wanted to take in the view one last time. When she hopped the last barrier she saw a hand on the deck behind a crate. "Commander," Alenko greeted as he peeked around his leaning spot. His voice was a little thready.

"What gives, L-T?" she asked playfully as she dropped to the edge of the platform noiselessly.

"Too many people wearing boots in the ship," he observed with a weak laugh. She dangled her legs over the side and leaned her forehead against the bar. "I'm sure that Dr. Chakwas told you, but it's just migraines. It's not a big deal."

"They affect your vision at all?" Her tone was even and calm like she was asking about the weather. If she made a big deal about it she figured it would put him on edge. She'd found that asking a marine about an injury or anything they might see as a shortcoming always went better without any trace of concern in your voice, even if the concern was well intended.

"Not usually. But it has happened."

"Do they happen in the field?"

He was just staring out at the darkness beyond the glow. "Once." He didn't elaborate and she knew the tone in his voice well enough not to push too hard. "They usually flare up after I've been … overactive. Biotically, I mean. Sometimes they just seem to spring up for no reason. Or when I'm stressed."

She nodded. "Just keep me informed, Kaidan. You doing all right otherwise?"

She didn't realize she'd used his first name until he looked at her. After a moment of contemplation, he nodded at her. She leaned back on her palms for a moment and looked up while chastising herself for the slip. She couldn't explain why she'd made the mistake. Then she stood up as quietly as she could, with his eyes still on her.

"We're heading out in a few hours. Pressly's probably started the inspection by now," she said in her recovered command voice.

Shepard strolled back down the gangway alone, which she was rather thankful for. When she entered the ship, Williams was waiting for her. She'd been leaning against the bulkhead chatting with the helmsman, but turned to Shepard when the airlock opened.

The Chief came to attention, "Ma'am," she said as the ship was announcing the commanding officer's return to all aboard.

"As you were, Chief."

Williams nodded then leaned toward her. "I'll do it."

"I know," the commander responded with a smile then she started down the bridge.

"Do what?" Joker said quietly.

"Don't worry about it, helmsman," Shepard replied a little more loudly as she kept walking.

In that instant, Shepard realized she'd just made the exact same play with Chief Williams that the Alliance had made with her. The commander had received a suggestion and found that she concurred with the opinion, then precisely designed her own approach to achieve the desired result. For a moment she heard Anderson's similar admission repeat in her head. And it wasn't the first time she had 'convinced' a subordinate into a recommended position.

Knowing the time to put out was approaching, the commander opted to return to the few tasks she had to complete before the ship left port. The Council wanted to know every identifying characteristic of their newest Spectre, and while the detailed listing of scars and other distinguishable marks was a little embarrassing, it was nothing compared to the invasiveness of the medical screening they had required. The only saving grace in that little debacle had been that they'd allowed Chakwas to conduct it rather than the creepy little salarian who kept sticking his long tongue out when he was typing.

Once again alone in her stark new quarters, the commander walked over to her footlocker and opened it. Nyx knew what she was looking for and where she'd find it-the things that mattered most were always at the bottom. Never seen at a glance but always there, like the parts of her life that mattered to her most and like the people you could count on and really trust. They didn't have to be right there, but you could always feel them around you.

The first photo that came out was one of her and her grandfather, her Daideó had taught her how to shoot and it was his knife that she carried in her boot. He'd given it to her that last day of summer before her mom and dad came returned from a very rare getaway together. He was kneeling beside her, his arms around her, one hand over hers on the grip and the other supporting her other hand as she cradled the blade. They were showing it to her Móraí (grandmother) who had taken the picture. "Now if you take care of her," he'd told her as she looked down in his face as he knelt in the lush grass, his thick brogue lilting off his tongue, "She'll take good care of you. Keep her clean. Only ever use a whetstone to keep her sharp. She belonged to my Da who carried her into war. She saved my life more than once. And now she'll protect you, baby girl."

She just stared at the photo in her hands-staring at his smile. He'd been the first one who knew where she was headed. When she wanted to learn to shoot he'd asked her why. "I want to be a marine like you." Even at a young age she knew her course in life, because of him. He'd smiled and touched her face. He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes and asked her why such a pretty girl would want to do something like that. "I'm not a pretty girl," she'd replied. "I'm strong. I can do it. I'm going to help people like you and Da. Fight for people who need it, for you and Móraí, Grandpa and Gran." His grin had widened and he'd nodded approvingly at her.

Shepard set the photo on her desk as the intercom signaled her again. This time it was Pressly telling her they were ready; all crew accounted for, and inspection complete. She headed up to the CIC and joined Joker in the cockpit. She remembered her grandfather's last words to her. "You're smart Nyxy-girl. You might not always know the answer but you can find it out, just keep looking. I know you'll make your ole Daideó proud," he'd whispered against her cheek before he kissed her. She'd hugged his neck so tight, trying to squeeze hard enough that she wouldn't cry. "I love you, Nyxy-girl. I'll always be there for you."

Nyx straightened up as she reached the helm and put her hand on the pilot's shoulder. "Open a ship-wide channel, Joker."


	10. Bleak Intangibles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Putting the Citadel behind them, the Normandy puts out for the Artemis Tau cluster and the only tangible lead they have so far--Matriarch Benezia's daughter. Though initially they start to doubt the intelligence they were given when scans of the first three star systems yield not even the faintest hint of Dr. Liara T'soni, who is undergoing the shock of her life on the surface of Therum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acknowledgements: I want to throw many kudos and flowers at the feet of my beta readers-xforeverquotex and my paramour. You guys are amazing and I appreciate your time and assistance with this piece.

**10 Bleak Intangibles**

  
****i.** **

* * *

Once underway the crew of the  _Normandy_  started to develop a new rhythm, more in line with an operational tempo, though Shepard knew that if the pace were anything close to what she had been running before she got to the  _SR-1_  no one on this ship would be ready for it. This prompted her encouragement of physical training for the entire squad. Vakarian and Williams already had their own regimens, and Alenko was leading PT for the marine detail. Wrex assured her that he would be fine with whatever they come up against, and Tali, well, Shepard was not completely sure how Tali approached it. The commander had warned them mainly because she knew what happened the last time the Alliance drove her team hard. She did not want to lose anyone on the ground or have them ask to rotate out a few months in. Shepard needed this crew to be solid, connected, and ready for anything, literally, because no one really had any idea what Saren Arterius was up to or capable of.

The jump to the Artemis Tau Cluster was made within hours of leaving the Citadel. But the next few days were spent painstakingly scanning and probing the planets of the relay system. After an unproductive nineteen hours in the Athens System, they set a course for the Macedon system. Shepard felt thoroughly drained from the lack of movement involved in hovering between the two stations in the rear of the helm; she needed some sort of outlet for her pent up energy and headed to the cargo bay to steal a short run in the hopes that some exertion might help her sleep.

Chuckling to herself, she shook her head when the elevator door opened-Wrex and Garrus were still arguing over the Mako like it was female. She knew eventually she would step in and see precisely what they were discussing, but like any conflict between crew she wanted to see if they would work out a solution for themselves. Whatever they were trying to convince one another of would eventually find its way to her desk, she knew. She did not figure either of them would do anything to the ground vehicle without clearing it past her or Adams first.

The gym was blissfully abandoned, and just like the first time she had tucked away in this hideaway, she cranked up some music with a quick pulsing beat which filled the compact space as she punched up her program on the treadmill. Once she reached her normal pace, she just hoped the run might do the trick. Within an hour, she opted to give sleep a chance, she knew the ship would hit the next system in a few hours and she should try to get a little sleep in case they found the matriarch's daughter they had come to this system in search of.

  
****ii.** **

* * *

The nightmares had eased up some, but they still occasionally combined with old terrors to startle her awake in the ever-present night of space. Shepard had served long enough to know that while the nightmares were not standard issue for Alliance soldiers, they were nearly inescapable for people in her line of work. Her old friend Caz had them, Dave Jensen and Sergeant Hargis from her old squad had admitted to them, even Lin said she had them from time to time and she had merely been a medic. But Lin had told Nyx that her short time at a field hospital on Elysium during the period that followed the Blitz had given her more than enough bad memories to haunt her for a lifetime, while the others were still out there somewhere racking up fodder for sleeplessness.

Oddly, the images from the beacon seemed to fit seamlessly with the ones that had haunted Shepard for years, and the commander resigned herself to the fact that she would likely have more to join them by the time everything was said and done.

"Commander."

Her head shot up off the desk and slammed into the lamp that hung slightly over the surface. "Damnit."

Joker ignored it. "Entering the Knossos system."

"Thank you Joker. Have Pressly start scanning for me. I'll be up there in ten," she said. They had been searching the systems one by one trying to find the good doctor. Knossos was the fourth system in Artemis Tau that they visited since they left the Citadel. And it was the last place Dr. T'soni could be, if she was even still out here.

Shepard stretched lazily almost glad it was the speaking voice of another human that woke her rather than the usual culprits. "You'd think it wouldn't be so hard to find one asari archaeologist-" She stopped herself when she actually considered precisely how much ground the  _Normandy_  had already covered to find this one scientist.

Her hands rubbed at the back of her neck and moved toward her left shoulder. The tension in the muscles she knew was in part to odd position she had accidentally spent the last few hours in, as well as being compounded by the situation she was in. "Belay that," she muttered to herself as her fingers sought out and pressed at the knots in the muscles of her shoulder.

Knowing from experience that hot water would help, she grabbed her shower kit and a change of clothes, opting to grab a quick shower before the scans could possibly produce any results. That was one advantage to living on a ship. The water was almost always hot. And the commander hoped it might help slough away the added soreness caused by passing out from the sheer boredom of reading reports at her desk a few hours before. Despite the fact that Shepard was used to sleeping in odd places, her impromptu nap had left her a little stiffer than usual.

When she exited the bathroom she smiled. The large room smelled of fresh coffee. She went to grab her mug from her spot but it was empty. Then she remembered. Her cup had moved. Even the little things seemed designed to remind her of the big picture staring her in the face and taunting her. She filled the mug and dosed it with sugar. With her first swallow she seemed to feel just a little more like more awake.

"Commander, I think we found what you're looking for," Pressly said to the entire deck, not knowing precisely where she was. Likely he had tried her quarters first.

"On my way," she replied.

She hurried to the cockpit and found Pressly leaning over a young yeoman busily tapping away at the screen.

"When in doubt check the coffee pot," she said as she leaned over the other side of the chair. "That my asari's location?"

"Highly likely. Some large underground complex from the look of the scan, but we can't get any readings in the main structure down there. Something is blocking the scan. And there's a lot of activity down there, Commander. We're reading geth signatures. If she's down there, she's not alone," Pressly replied with a trace of concern.

Nyx nodded as she looked at the console for a long moment before she glanced up at her XO. "Well, it's not like I thought I'd be able to skip right in and pick her up with flowers and chocolate."

"Never figured you for the flowers type, Commander," Joker opined from a few feet away.

Pressly narrowed his eyes at the pilot's statement. Shepard could see he was considering a reprimand, but the commander shook her head. The other officer nodded at her, seemingly understanding. "Probably right," she replied evenly. "A bouquet of small arms and fusion grenades might be more my style."

"Oh really? Way I heard it sounded like you prefer long and sharp."

She glanced over her shoulder, the pilot was grinning. "Wouldn't you like to know?" she declared smugly as she crossed the small space and Joker laughed. She reached past him and keyed the intercom from his panel "Tali. Williams. How does a girls' night sound?"

"Hella fine, ma'am," Williams responded gleefully.

"Suit up! We're going for a ride," the last part of that statement was said in an incredibly playful tone.

As she turned to head for the elevator, Joker's voice stopped her. "Please don't crash this one, Commander."

"I'm fine on the ground. Nothing to worry about."

"Right.  _So_ , not what I heard."

She turned and walked away shaking her head. One of these days she would have to find out where he was getting his information. But this was not that day. She made her way down to the cargo bay, and polished off her cup of coffee as they suited up and checked their weapons. Since the chief was going with this time around, Shepard opted to leave her Reaper behind.

"There's a welcoming party waiting for us people. So keep your eyes open," the commander said quickly as she waited for them all to hop into the Mako.

"From what I hear Shepard, maybe you should let me drive," Williams chided, tapping her hand on the side of the door.

"Why do I suddenly feel like it might be more dangerous in here with the two of you than down there with the geth?" Tali asked, sliding into a seat in the rear of the Mako.

"Because you're perceptive," Joker added over the radio.

"Just open the garage door, Dad," Shepard quipped, slithering into her seat.

"Aye, aye, ma'am. Preparing for drop in three."

  
****iii.** **

* * *

Doctor Plavia T'ngazi had spent nearly a year fighting for the right to block the looting of the Prothean Ruins on Therum. It seemed to many a lop-sided endeavor. A small band of scientists and researchers battled against the Eldfell-Ashland Energy (EAE) which was one of the most widely known human mining corporations. EAE had a significant presence in the galaxy and had a healthy revenue stream from its base element mining operations. That sustainable stream of revenue made it more formidable than other companies like it.

In her fight, T'ngazi had gathered support from Serrice University, as well as from researchers on Earth and brought in a few influential salarians as well. Her hope that a multi-cultural research group could get more recognition than an asari team had paid off. When pressured by academics from many races, the Council finally succumbed to the calls for it to live up to its promises to protect these sites from any further looting and pillaging.

At that point, EAE was forced to halt mining in and around ruins on Therum. The company not only had to pay fines, which were used to fund the research team sent to Therum, it was held to strict standards and penalties regarding the disclosure of such finds in the future.

Dr. Liara T'soni had come to Plavia's team a few months after the decision, just prior to the team's deployment. Her age seemed to concern several of the asari among the group of fifteen, ten of whom were scientists. But Liara had spent the past forty years on the move, from planet to planet, working at various Prothean dig sites. It had been more than quarter of a century since she last returned to Thessia. The young asari knew it was her time spent on-the-job, so to speak, that got her request to join Dr. T'ngazi's team approved.

Working dig sites in the remote regions at the edge of Council Space was not a calm line of work. It could be hard and back-breaking, which made the rewards of discovery that much sweeter. But Liara's work ethic was not the only reason for her approval. She could handle herself. More than once T'soni had been part of the defense of a site beset by pirates and looters. She could handle a pistol and her mother had ensured that Liara was quite skilled in the use of her biotics, even if her planned career path meant she spent more time in libraries and dusty ruins than in combat situations.

As the daughter of a Matriarch like Benezia, there were certain expectations placed on Liara; expectations she had never fully appreciated until she heard the scream echoing off the rock of the underground cavern. It reverberated off itself and the stone for a good five seconds, before only the echoes of an asari geologist's last moments faded after her body hit the rocks not twenty feet from where Liara and Plavia sat discussing ways to approach the security system of the ruin that still seemed intact. They feared someone accidentally setting it off, but the point seemed moot now.

Both women stared at the crushed and contorted body of the Niea, who often unintentionally sang most of the team to sleep every night. While looking at pictures of her daughters, the geologist would sing a familiar lullaby softly; it had become a comfort to them all. Liara shot to her feet with the first sounds of gun fire.

A turian mercenary hired to protect the dig, ran toward the tent and keyed open the weapons locker. "Hurry! Find a place to hide! Liara, I'll be on channel three if you need me," Lakis said sharply as he handed her and Plavia each a pistol.

T'ngazi's hands were shaking she did not know what to do with the weapon. Even when she was younger she had never defended herself or her earlier digs. It was a foreign and alien concept to Plavia and she quickly handed the weapon to Liara.

"Come, Doctor. Let's see if we can't find a safe place to hide," Liara stated. Her voice was steady and even.

T'soni knew Lakis, the turian. They had worked together before. She had faith in the people hired to protect them. At least until the choking whisper burned into her psyche, "Run! Get behind the shield!"

Panic set in. Lakis was likely dead or dying. "Plavia," Liara whispered, holding her mentor's face in both her hands as she spoke lowly. "We have to get to the ruins. We have to get the shield up."

"What's happened?"

"I think Lakis and his team are dead."

"What!?" T'ngazi screeched.

"Hush. We must go quickly," Liara insisted. She crouched low and pulled at Plavia's hand. When she saw them, she froze. "Geth?" she whispered in surprise.

The head of the research team was clinging to Liara's arm, staring at the catwalks. "What are they doing beyond the Veil?"

"It don't know," Liara stated dryly. She darted to the weapons locker that was still open then strode past the other asari, grabbing her hand as she passed. "But I'm certain we don't want to find out."

The younger archaeologist pulled the older researcher along at a quick pace, but they were moving slower than Liara would have preferred, in part because of Plavia's limp, but mainly due to her fear. T'soni had to keep stopping to comfort her and convince her they would be fine. When the elevator started moving, Liara's own fear reared up. In that moment she wished she had participated in more sports as a young woman.

The first throw went wide and the grenade detonated against nothing, but Liara had more luck with the second. It rolled right up against the door of the elevator; she just hoped it might be enough. But the first rocket shocked her as it exploded less than twenty feet away from them.

Plavia crumpled to the ground. "What is happening? Why are they here?"

"It doesn't matter. Come on!"

The dark-eyed woman looked up at Liara, shaking her head. "I can't."

It was only then that T'soni noticed the wide gash in Plavia's leg. "Yes, you can. I'll help you."

"No." T'ngazi pushed at the younger doctor's shoulder. "Go! You can make it without me. Go!"

Liara's hands trembled as she handed the pistol back to her friend, flipping the safety off for her. "I'm sorry."

"I know. Now go!"

A deep ragged breath shook in T'soni's chest as she stood. Another rocket bounced off the cavern walls not far from them, and her eyes moved to the geth pouring in from the back entrance on the opposite side of the large room from the elevator and the entry way to the ruins.  _By the goddess! There are so many of them. What could they want with Therum?_  The thoughts were chased away by weapons fire, and finally her survival instinct kicked back in. Liara sprinted up the metal walkway and dashed into the wide-mouthed opening in the ruin.

The rounds ricocheted off the pristine white-tiled walls as she tapped at the console. "Come on, damn you!" She hazarded a glance behind her, Plavia was still shooting, even though the geth had started moving past her. The errant thought that they were coming for her, spurred Liara onward more quickly. "By the goddess, you infernal piece of …"

Her scream was sharp and resounded inside her own head as she screwed her eyes closed at the sensation of being lifted off her feet. It took her a moment to realize she was not dead. Opening her eyes slowly, she saw the blue glow between her and the geth. They tilted their oddly-shaped heads as if studying the barrier between them and their target. Liara tried to move her arm, but nothing happened, but strangely she could move her head slightly, enough to see she was suspended, spread-eagle.

"Goddess," she groaned. She had managed to do precisely what she and Plavia had spent the last two days trying to figure out how to avoid.

Her mind raced. One advantage was that she was safe, for now. The bad part was that even if the geth did not get through the shield she would be dead in a matter of days anyway. Liara hung her head defeated.  _Escape a quick death only to drag it out_ , she thought _. If they were planning to kill you, that is_.

The thought made her remember Plavia. The other asari was no longer firing, she just leaned awkwardly against the grating. But she seemed to be smiling, though Liara could not be sure at this distance.

The geth quickly gave up their inspection of the barrier when a large krogan, even by krogan standards, walked up to the blue sheathe covering the opening.

"Well, well, well. Looks like you gift-wrapped yourself for me," he announced, studying the doctor. "If my boss is right once you're dead that little field will drop and I'll still get my payday, though this trip would be much more lucrative, if you were still breathing. But it's your call. You can come out, or I'll wait you out. Either works for me."

Liara just stared at him.  _Slow death it is_ , she decided in that moment. Even though she knew how to lower the field she could not get herself free of whatever stasis trap she had placed herself in. And if she could have dropped the field she would not. She would rather die slowly and painfully than cooperate with the likes of that mercenary or whoever might employ him.

  
****iv.** **

* * *

The metallic thunk woke the asari. The geth came by on a regular schedule to see if she was still alive-she had counted fourteen such visits. She could only guess they were an hourly schedule and guessed she likely had been trapped for twenty or so hours. If she was lucky. But the sound that woke her was not the geth. Her fear, relief, exhaustion, and anxiety rushed to the surface when she saw the three figures on the other side of the barrier who were clearly not geth, nor krogan.

"Uh… Hello!" she called at the noise, then shook her head at herself for being so foolish. There was nothing here but geth and that horrible krogan that leered at her and licked his cracked lips like he was looking at his next meal.

When she saw the human, pistol in hand, Liara started laughing uncontrollably. "Are you real?" she asked finally as the female approached. No response save a curious raise of the eyebrows which made the asari second guess herself.  _Of course she's not real. How could she be? No one knows you're down here. No one but those damn geth and that krogan are looking for you. And why would a human be here anyway? The Council forced EAE to suspend their operations for at least six months in this sector. There was no good reason for a human to come down that shaft. Foolish child!_

She shook her head and let it fall again.

"Dr. T'soni? I presume," the hallucination said.

_Oh Goddess! I must be farther gone than I think,_  Liara thought as she decided whether to have this conversation with herself. "Fine. Sure. Yes, little figment of my subconscious. I am Liara T'soni."

Liara squinted when she heard another voice sharply whisper, "Got eyes. We're not alone."

"Of course, we're not alone," Liara stated rather loudly. "There are geth crawling all over the place and a rather sizeable krogan, as well."

"Hush," the figment replied at her, waving a hand at her.

"My! You certainly are rude for a hallucination."

"Shut up, doctor," the human growled, clearly annunciating every word with razor sharpness.

Liara, uncertain what triggered it-the fire in her eyes, the bite in her voice, or the calculating movements of her body-finally realized in that moment that the human was not some trick of the mind; she was real. Her anxiety peaked again as the human crept into the darkness beyond her field of vision. Her chest tightened and Liara had to bite back the tears of frustration as she listened to the weapons fire from beyond the security curtain.

_I'm going to die down here_.  _The geth are everywhere. This overheated rock wasn't worth it. This ruin was stripped by the mining company before we got here. It was all a waste of time, effort, … lives. And now I'm going to die in this ridiculous security ball in this crumbling tower. What were you thinking coming out here, Liara?_

"All right, Doctor. What can you tell me about this thing?" the human asked.

Liara's head shot up and her eyes opened at the voice. She was alive.  _How did she manage to survive?_  Then the other two came close enough to the curtain that Liara could see them. There were three of them.  _All female_ , she noted.  _Two humans. And a quarian?_ She recovered from her surprise quickly and proceeded to explain what had happened.

The dark-haired one seemed impatient, it was the combination of rolling eyes and heavy sighs that suggested her irritation. The quarian constantly swept the distant part of the cavern, pistol at the ready. The light-haired one looked at the asari as if assessing her. She did not hurry Liara or push, as the other human did once or twice, only to be calmed by the shorter woman.

"The defenses can't be shut down from the outside," Liara stated. Her shoulders sank slightly. "And I'm not sure how you'll get in here."

The woman shifted her weight and set her hands on her hips before she turned to survey the area. "We'll think of something," she added with a glance over her shoulder at Liara before she walked to the railing and discussed the options with the other two women. "We'll be back," the human said, backing down the walkway after her companions.

A few minutes later the explosion and the acrid smell of smoke made the doctor's heart race. The scent became stronger as a grating sound seemed to get louder. It was nerve wracking and she had no idea what was going on. Liara could not remember feeling so scared, or tired, in her entire life. And though she did not know what this human wanted, at that moment it mattered not. The human seemed a much better alternative to the creepy krogan.

Her breath hitched in her throat, when the elevator in the tower started up. Liara, try as she might, could not see anything.  _Oh Goddess! Just let them kill me quickly. Please don't let them torture me_ , she prayed silently.

"So, how do we shut this off, Doctor?" a strangely gentle voice asked from her left.

"Oh, thank the Goddess," she murmured. Liara swallowed hard and took a deep breath trying to calm herself before she explained how to shut down the field.

When Liara fell, the woman she had been speaking with rushed to her side. "How long were you in that thing?"

"Too long. Maybe close to a day."

The blonde dug into a pocket and pulled out a silvery little package. "Here, eat this. I'm Lieutenant Commander Shepard, Alliance," she stopped suddenly and her look suggested she forgot something. "I'm a Spectre. We're looking for information on your mother, Matriarch Benezia. She's working with a turian named Saren Arterius."

"There are no human Spectres," Liara noted, taking a dainty bite of the horrid item Shepard had offered her.

"There are now," the dark-haired one bit back acidly.

"Williams," Shepard replied and the other soldier turned.

The ground quaked beneath their feet. "How did you get in here?" Liara queried as the commander guided her back to her feet.

"Mining laser."

"Oh my!"

"My sentiments exactly. We should probably get you out of here. Are you all right?" Shepard questioned as they moved toward the elevator.

"If we're leaving, I'm fine," Liara said with more steel in her voice than she had felt capable of an hour earlier.

  
****v.** **

* * *

The heat seemed to have increased, and on the horizon a large peak was spewing billows of grayish-white ash which reached high into the atmosphere in a wide thick column, rolling and engulfing the sky by the second.  _That's not good! If that plume reaches us, we're going to have more problems than we've already got._  "Let's move it. We don't have time to take in the view," Shepard barked.

The seismic trigger of the laser had not just prompted the collapse of the ruin, it seemed it had spurred a volcanic event. All the commander could hear was her old demolitions master jokingly saying,  _go big or go home_. It was apt, in this situation, dangerous and foreboding, but apt. The ground trembled beneath their boots as they ran and stumbled back through the canyon, picking off a few geth stragglers that had come in with the krogan, or so the commander assumed. The lake not far from where they had left the Mako was spitting lava into the air violently and the little river of magma had risen noticeably. All signs pointed to it being well past time to leave.

"In. In. In," the commander called as she sprinted for the vehicle. She hopped in last and slid into the driver's seat, as Tali dogged the hatch.

They were moving before Ashley was able to dial in a static-filled signal. " _Normandy_. This is Mako. Can you read?" They had lost comms just after the tremors had started.

The reception was thready, but she heard Joker clearly say, "Get the hell out of there, Commander!"

"Roger that. On the move. Heading to rendezvous Alpha," Williams advised as Shepard floored it.

Shepard was thoroughly relieved the team had taken the time to clear the geth gun emplacements and had the foresight to lower both gates. The Mako bucked as they sped over the gate mechanisms and even the smallest rises and falls in the terrain caused the vehicle to react dramatically. Shepard listened to the tick of the scanner tracking her proximity to the rendezvous site. When it beeped at a steady, quick pace, she placed her hand on the roof and slammed the brakes, turning into the slide and coming to a quick but jostling halt. Her passengers suddenly wished they had been warned, as they all leaned hard to the right. Ashley's body strained against the tight straps of the passenger seat, but the quarian wound up sprawled in the asari's lap.

"Damn, Shepard. Some warning next time," Williams blurted coarsely.

"Sorry," the officer commented as she turned to the back of the vehicle. "Everyone all right?"

Groans and nods came forward in response as the  _Normandy_  closed on their position. From the safety of the bay, Shepard watched the flying spurts of lava reaching out for them as the door closed and the  _Normandy_  moved away from the very upset planet. Everyone in the Mako was familiar with the expression-pulled your boots out of the fire-some of them may have even used it on occasion, but never before had it been quite so literal.


	11. Excessive Heat Exposure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return from Therum has everyone a little hot under the collar, but then barely missing a major volcanic event can have that effect on people. Liara tries to make her position clear to the crew of the Normandy by offering up any assistance she can muster. Meanwhile Shepard takes an unintended step toward the lieutenant, before trying to rebury her troublesome and growing interest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual my sincere thanks to xForeverQuotex and MyParamour for their beta skills. I appreciate them more than words can express. Also my thanks to those of you reading, for your patience with real life and writer's block intruding on my planned schedule for things.

**11 Excessive Heat Exposure**

  
****i.** **

* * *

Once the bay was sealed, Shepard unlocked the door of the Mako, and exited after the rest of the squad. "Nicely done, Mr. Moreau," Shepard called as she folded out of the Mako, her landing was relatively noiseless despite the weapons and armor adding to her weight. She had always been light on her feet, it was something she attributed to the etiquette classes her mother had foisted on her as a girl. "Have everyone assembled in the Comms in forty."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

The commander traded a glance with Williams.

"It was like playing tag in hell," the chief stated, trying not to yawn.

"Yes, it was a bit on the warm side for my tastes, as well," Liara noted in a delicate voice.

Shepard noticed the glare the chief cast in the alien's direction. The commander assumed, and hoped, it was from a lack of trust combined with irritation over the situation that had surrounded the seemingly oblivious scientist, whose unclear head had unwittingly given away the team's location in the ruin.

"All right, I'll see you in briefing. Gentleman, escort Dr. T'soni to medical please, once you've cleared her, as per procedure," the commander said to the pair of MPs as much as to the asari. "These men will remain with you until they bring you up to the briefing," Shepard directed to the doctor.  _And until I figure out what we're going to do with you._

The other two females were disarming on the other side of the bay. The officer crossed to the elevator and unholstered her pistol, flipping on the safety as the door closed. After clearing it and pulling off the barrel, Nyx inspected the weapon, before checking over part of the exposed mechanism. It had started acting up before they met up with the krogan. When the door of the lift slid open she was still studying the mechanism and nearly collided with Chief McMillan.

"Problem, ma'am?" he asked with a glance at her pistol.

"Probably not. It's just being temperamental."

He nodded once. "Edges tend to be. Might want to see if you can requisition up a Raikou-they pack quite punch and are pretty reliable little beasts."

"Thanks for the suggestion, Chief. I'll look into it."

She ducked into her quarters with a smile, glad that McMillan seemed to be a little less tense around her now. Nyx shed her armor and then made a beeline for the showers in the tank top and the black shorts she wore beneath the under mesh of her armor. After scrubbing away a mix of volcanic grime, sweat, and what she could only think of calling geth juice, she let herself just stand under a stream of cold water.

The heat on Therum still seemed to be roasting her-even in the Mako with the environmental controls working overtime, she still felt like her brain was baking in her skull, and Shepard was pretty well certain she was not the only one who was suffering similarly. She pulled on her BDU pants and t-shirt then went to the sink.

"C-O if you took all the cold water, I might just have to shoot you." Williams joked with a slightly serious note in her voice, which was entirely undone by her relieved smile. It seemed Ashley was glad to finally be within reach of some reprieve from the discomfort of the little volcanic world they had just left.

Shepard laughed and tried not to choke on her toothpaste. "No worries, Chief. I think there is more than enough to go around," she replied after rinsing out her mouth.

"Next time you wanna do something fun with the girls, let's find a better destination than Hell's twin sister."

"Roger that, Chief. Enjoy the cold water."

She padded across the deck in stocking feet-lime green socks with white and yellow stripes of varying widths-still not willing to put on more clothing. When the hatch to her quarters opened, she threw her things in the direction of the bed. Not caring if anything made it, she turned and crossed the deck to the coffee pot before changing her mind and reaching into the refer unit instead. Shepard hopped onto the counter and quickly downed two bottles of orange juice as she was about to reach for her third, she caught sight of the shadow.

"You all right, ma'am?"

Shepard looked up at him like a kid who had been caught in their father's liquor cabinet. "It was just really hot down there," she explained rather sheepishly. "I think I might be a touch dehydrated."

"You might want to go easy with the sugar." He walked over and reached into the back of the unit, pulling out a large cold canteen. "I read the scans planet side. Put several of them in here for you and the rest of the la- … ground team, … ma'am."

"Tell me you are not drinking coffee," Williams said, pulling her still damp hair up as she rounded the corner.

"Nope. Alenko hooked us up." Shepard tossed the canteen to her as Kaidan moved to grab a replacement.

Williams pressed the bottle to her neck. "L-T you are now my favorite person  _ever_. I could  _so_  kiss you."

Shepard tried not to, but could not help but laugh, as she noticed the blush kiss his cheeks, before he reached into the unit again and set two more cold canteens onto the counter.

Clearing his throat as he stood, he looked down at Shepard. "Don't know if Tali can drink it," he announced, setting his fingertips on the top of a red canteen, "I think I followed the procedure right, but I'm not sure. She may not want to risk it."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate the effort, but we'll pass on the warning," the commander replied, returning the slight smile he gave her.

As soon as they heard him mount the stairs, Williams laughed wildly and Shepard smiled as she lifted the bottle to her lips. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't even think about it when I said it."

"Happens to the best of us. Besides, I'm not the one you need to apologize to, Chief." Shepard shrugged.

"It's just… Really, how can a hospitable planet be that damn hot? I'm starting to sweat again just thinking about it." Williams shook her shoulders uncomfortably at the thought of Therum, Nyx could sympathize.

Shepard's alarm pinged.  _Ten minute warning_. The commander hopped off the counter. "Could you deliver these to our fellow sufferers?" she tossed the canteens to Williams. "Let Tali know the Lieutenant's a rookie and it may not be properly prepared."

Shepard shook her head at the idea as she walked to her quarters.  _Nice of him to give it a go. But it has to be a tough life_. She was very interested to know more about the quarians. They were fascinating and heartbreaking all at once. A part of her wondered if Tali's life had resembled parts of her own, or if life on the Flotilla was more akin to life on the ground. She let the thought fall away as she pulled on her boots and the rest of her uniform before heading up to the communications room.

  
****ii.** **

* * *

The taller man with the kind eyes glanced down at her. "Ma'am," he said softly, touching her arm when the door opened.

"Thank you," Liara replied.

"Please, Dr. T'soni, have a seat," Shepard suggested, looking up at her from across the room.

Everyone in the room was staring at her, well, she did not know for certain if the quarian was, but her head was turned toward the doorway, so Liara assumed she was as well. They had all been here for some time before the commander had called down to the medical bay and asked that the security personnel escort her upstairs. Liara could only think that the squad had been discussing her, and possibly her fate, as it were. The commander was the only one not looking at her; the little human's bright blue eyes were cast in the direction of her toes.

 _She looks much bigger in armor_. The thought streaked through the doctor's head and it made her study the human just a little bit closer as she crossed the room. Liara stared at Shepard, in part because she was not looking back, but also because she had been intrigued by her from the point at which the officer shushed her-the point when the asari first realized the woman was not a hallucination. Shepard was leaning against a low railing, arms folded over her chest and ankles crossed in front of her. The pose suggested relaxation, but her eyes and the stress knitting her brow suggested the officer was anything but.

When she took the seat between the turian and the krogan she was struck by the reality of it. There were only three humans in the room. She observed each in turn as they spoke, human and alien; each presented their take on the mission on Therum, asked questions, and offered their insights into the encounter at the dig site. When T'soni looked at the other human female, if she recalled correctly the commander had called her Williams, her dark eyes bored into the asari, prompting Liara to shift her gaze to the man next to her. His eyes were much kinder, but more guarded.

The commander had been hospitable enough, but Liara had still been escorted under guard to the medical bay where she met with Shepard for a few minutes prior to the MPs walking her upstairs to that room. She understood procedure and from the questions at the dig site, the presence of the geth, and the krogan mercenary there to fetch her, Liara could certainly appreciate the caution being taken with her. They all wanted to be sure she was not some kind of spy or something more than she had admitted to.

After what happened on Therum and after seeing them in action, witnessing the skill they exhibited, Liara wanted nothing more than for them to know she had no contact with her mother. It was easy to recognize that this was not a group of people you wanted to be on the wrong side of. She had no idea what Benezia was doing, and whatever it was seemed like something Liara would want no part of. That moment was the first one in decades where the young asari was glad for the estrangement she and her mother were in the throes of.

Looking around the room, surprise was the only reaction she could muster, tempered with a little awe. Krogan, turian, even a quarian, and now an asari-how had this one woman, and a human at that, managed to ally herself with such a diverse group? And if the caliber of the commander and the team she had met on Therum was any measure, they were all very capable in their own right, the scientist guessed. Liara thought most humans feared or at least looked down on other species, but this woman respected them and listened to them-apparently counting them among her equals, if she were to judge from this example.

The most striking member of the ensemble, for Dr. T'soni, by far, was the quarian. She had only ever met two others of that species and they had been rather skittish visitors to the university in Thessia's capital, there to deliver a special lecture for a professor in the engineering department. Liara only seen them from afar, and never had the chance to speak with them.

As the briefing proceeded, the doctor overcame her natural shyness in favor of self-preservation, freely offering up any information she had, whether she thought it useful or not. She knew that she owed these people her life and, while she did not know or quite understand what her mother was doing with Saren, she was sure that she would rather the commander and her squad not assume Liara's support lay along the same vein. In that moment she realized just how long it had been since she saw her mother last-nearly fifty years. It had been half a century since mother and daughter had last merely seen one another face-to-face. They had spoken since, a few times, but Liara merely felt herself buckle under the weight of her mother's expectations for her every time they made contact. So Liara had continued her work, relatively on her own.

After mention of the beacon on Eden Prime, and the commander's interaction with it, Liara found herself a bit distracted. She could hardly imagine how the petite human, leaning against the railing in a stance that made her seem smaller than she actually was, had been able to handle the experience.  _She's touched live, functioning Prothean technology._  Even after having witnessed her powerful display against the krogan on Therum, the asari found it hard to get past the look of the young woman.  _She seems almost delicate_. Liara could not reconcile the slight female with the type of strength one would certainly have to possess to withstand an interaction with a beacon like they described.

 _How could Shepard even survive?_ The doctor had heard of one asari academic who had attempted interfacing with a minor device, not even something as large as the beacons Liara had seen images of, and that researcher's brain function had been reduced to bare survival levels. She lost the power of cognizant speech and only retained the barest of motor functions for the two years she had managed to survive after her interaction with the device. And from everything Liara had read, asari were much heartier physiologically than the short-lived human species. Shepard's mere survival was miraculous, but to survive  _and_ maintain her personality and abilities. Needless to say, the young academic was intrigued.

During the briefing Liara found an eager audience for her knowledge. The commander did not seem concerned about her relative youth and welcomed her input. It was this response, tied to a scientist's natural curiosity that prompted the doctor to offer her opinion on the images that Shepard had received from the beacon.

"I could try to help you make sense of the images from the beacon," Liara suggested, scooting forward in her chair while trying not to look fervid.

Despite her eagerness to know what might have been transmitted through the beacon, Liara was concerned slightly, especially attempting this process in a room full of people that seemed to hold a great deal of respect for the honey-haired woman she was about to lay hands on. With good reason, she was concerned about the reactions of those present, not all, but some-namely the other human female who eyed Liara suspiciously throughout the entire meeting, and the krogan who seemed to growl unconsciously under his breath.

T'soni rose demurely and met the officer in the center of the room. She tried to prepare Shepard as best she could for what she was going to do, but there really is no preparation for the melding, especially when one or both parties are relatively unfamiliar with the process or the person they are trying to connect to. Melding with another was usually an immensely personal action and often incredibly startling the first time, even for many asari.

"Close your eyes, please. Relax your mind, but try to think about that day. It may make it easier," Dr. T'soni suggested.

She noticed Shepard wince slightly at the direction.  _It must not have been a pleasant experience_. Setting one hand on the human's shoulder, Liara gripped the woman's upper arm in the other. She knew bare skin contact usually made the connection a quite a bit easier, but some of the more cautious glances concerned the asari enough that she opted for a more detached method of connection.

"Embrace eternity," the doctor gasped as she opened her eyes, which were now no more than inky black pools.

Though she had performed this type of interaction a few times before, Liara had never had anywhere near the difficulty she had with the commander. Though she knew it to be unintentional, it seemed like Shepard was fighting her every step of the way. She could feel the relative relaxation in the human female's arm and shoulder but her consciousness was not a very tranquil place. Her mind seemed to be swirling and racing, thoughts flowing freely and seemingly at random. It was like being caught in a maelstrom.

Liara placed her hands on the side of Shepard's neck, her brow furrowing slightly with the signs of the struggle. Fighting toward the images of the beacon was trying, to say the least, but she caught a glimpse of the tall thin obelisk, heard the pulse and felt the glow. Then it was replaced with the lifeless eyes of a young man and the stricken face of the lieutenant who had smiled and nodded at her not long ago. But it was immediately replaced with another image: the dead young man standing with several other soldiers, she assumed from the similar manner of dress; he was standing, holding his hands triumphantly in the air. In those moments, Shepard's grief, joy, fear, pride, anger, and hope were all starkly evident— _she feels so strongly, vibrantly._  Liara had not noticed any outward sign of this type of emotional investment since she met the woman.

The archaeologist concentrated harder.  _It's not right to allow yourself to wander. Focus on the beacon. Perhaps following the memories more linearly would make it easier_ , she thought. She saw a geth holding down a civilian who was immediately impaled on a large spike. She felt herself gasp. The struggle continued. A dead turian. The sight of a geth's head exploding through the sights of a rifle.

Then the beacon- _finally_ , the doctor thought, as the fatigue of the exchange muddied her own mind. But then there was more. The strange pulsing of the device was a little off putting. She even heard Shepard's thoughts as she pulled the lieutenant clear of the device. Then she felt it-all of it. The constriction, the pressure, and the paralyzing sensation, but the images came, finally.

When she released Shepard, Liara felt light-headed, not only from the fact she had been holding her breath since the beacon grabbed the human in the memory, but also from the struggle to interact with the commander's mind. She now better understood why this woman could survive where the asari researcher had not. Shepard's will and her mind were strong; she was more robust and forceful than anyone Liara had ever encountered-more trying even than the turian engineer she had melded with on a dig, and their species were considered some of the hardest subjects to meld with and read. Shepard's mind was even more demanding than Liara recalled her own mother's being.

The doctor could only stare at Shepard, the things she saw and felt while within the woman's mind were striking and dizzying-enticing and consuming. Her balance failed her, but Shepard caught Liara's arm. The gesture spoke deeply to the asari. Even in the short time since she met the commander T'soni noticed her respect and consideration for her team. With that assistance and the suggestion to speak with Dr. Chakwas, Liara felt it was a clear communication of her inclusion. Nor did Shepard seem suspicious of her or concerned that the archaeologist might share her mother's agenda. Liara did not, but she was shocked to see a human trust her so quickly. Everything she had heard about them would have suggested otherwise. She expected the same suspicion the other human female cast in the asari's direction with every glance.

  
****iii.** **

* * *

Shepard, hands clasped behind her back, tapped the button on her datacuff thrice, a clear signal of her intent, she just hoped that the helmsman knew it. Uncertain whether he had all that much experience with operational non-verbal comm signals, she sent the click command anyway and was thankful Joker understood her signal. The councilors disappeared in the middle of the turian ambassador's newest diatribe. The Council were in a tither over the fact that she brought T'soni aboard and was considering her as a potential resource rather than a criminal. Shepard's method for concluding the conversation was a message crafted to offer the Galactic Council a little insight into their newest Spectre-do not mess with her people.

"Communications cut, Commander."

Joker was trying to stifle his glee at having been able to hang up on the Council. He shared her disdain for politicians; he had also been fairly candid about it when he revealed to her that he barely liked most officers. Of course he had softened the blow by saying there were a few exceptions to that rule, while smirking at her. His explanation was one she could sympathize with-he mostly just put up with the uptight officers because it got him where he wanted to be-into the pilot's seat of some of the most advanced vessels the Alliance had to offer.

"Still feeling the heat, ma'am?" he asked playfully after a moment.

"Little bit, Joker."

"Maybe it was setting off a dormant volcano that got you all calescent."

Shepard looked up at the ceiling for a long moment. "You running a word of the day program up there, Lieutenant?" she asked as she crossed to the door.

"What can I say? I'm full of surprises."

She made her way to the cockpit quickly, polishing off the last of the water she sipped at since the returned from Therum. She did not reply until she was standing behind him. "You are never going to let me live that down, are you?"

  
****iv.** **

* * *

Joker, not expecting her to come up to the helm, was startled by the sudden proximity of her voice. He grinned and shook his head as he replied. "Not if I can manage it. And, hey, how many times does a guy like me get something he can hold over an N7? Let alone a Spectre? Come on. No one's strong-willed enough to resist that kind of temptation."

At that she laughed heartily, not the usual reserved chuckle or amused sigh with a trace of a smile that she offered the rest of the crew, but an all out laugh. Joker just nodded with satisfaction, glad that he was able to have relieved some of the tension the Council's call seemed to have added to an already heavy mix.

The pilot decided to press his luck a little more. He glanced over at her, deadpan, and happily informed her that he preferred gold to silver for his medal. And the officer replied in kind reminding him that he would have to break out the blues and go all spit and polish, as well as shave the beard. That was the straw that broke that camel's back.

"No way I'm shaving this baby," Jeff chided, stroking his facial hair.

"Well, at least you've got your priorities straight."

"Yep, pretty simple list. Fly. Pick you up when you do something insane. Fly. And then become a real-life wookie."

"You're going to be your own Chewy?"

"Why the hell not?" Joker chuckled.

"Why the hell not, indeed?" Shepard agreed. "All right. Link us into a comm buoy so I can get Anderson and the brass their reports as well. And ask someone at command if we have anything on Saren or his synthetic army yet," she ordered.

"On it."

He had known from the first time he met Shepard that she was going to be an officer he liked. It had become cemented when Moreau heard from Alenko that she planned a little biotics display using her staff lieutenant as a target. In that moment, he realized he was not going to be dealing with the typical uptight Executive Officer. No one had really known what to expect of her—N7, Spec Ops, trained with the turians, war hero—with a glance at her service record, the unclassified part, she seemed like someone you did not want to meet anywhere, let alone a dark alley, especially if you were the wrong sort.

But there was more to it than that. The news that she was going to go toe-to-toe, or brain-to-brain, as it were, with Alenko had inspired the Flight Lieutenant to make some more in depth calls. He had called pilots he knew, a few Special Ops guys he pulled out of some hairy situations, and even a guy he knew from the academy who had gone into intelligence. The shocking part was that it had been the intel squirrel that talked the most.

The commander tapped the top of his chair twice before she turned and headed back through the CIC. After the events on Therum, the pilot hazarded a guess that she was headed back to her quarters, or maybe the mess.

  
****v.** **

* * *

Shepard did indeed make her way back to the crew deck, considering what he playfully said to her about his medal preference. He was dead right. Joker really had pulled her boots out of the fire. And he had also been right about what he said when they first set out-he was one hell of a pilot.  _He might just get a medal or two out of this tour, with the way everything was going down._

There was no struggle in writing the after-action reports. Everyone who touched the mission had completed their requisite paperwork and once she added her own, Shepard merely had to coalesce them into an official AAR. All the others would be attached with it for reference. Over the years she had learned, through success and failure, it was not her job to decide what went in the report, just to record what happened on the ground as she saw it. All the reports were loaded into the encrypted data transmission to be beamed to Command, as well as uploaded to her personal storage device off-site.

Chief Jensen had always called it her Save-Your-Ass-in-a-Pinch cache, though Shepard always thought that was just too long a title. It housed every report she had ever authored. Even the ones it probably should not house. But it was her safety net. That way she always had a place to go and grab the information so she could look back and be able to say, "No, that is not how that happened." And she planned on continuing the trend, especially since it had paid off in the past and kept her reputation clear from accusations.

Rubbing at the back of her neck, she decided to make the rounds. See if there was anything going on that required her attention. The cargo bay was quiet. Williams was breaking down and cleaning weapons and Garrus was running an after action inspection on the Mako with the vehicle's service crew. Returning to the crew deck she popped into medical to check on the asari. Chakwas gave Liara a clear bill of health, explaining that it was merely an expected reaction to the melding process combined the exhaustion and the stress of the attack on Therum.

"She's decided to make use of the medical lab in the back here. It's a nice quiet spot. And she seems a little shy," the doctor volunteered.

"We are still talking about the asari, right?" Shepard asked. "She wasn't shy in the briefing."  _Nor when she was yelling at us in that ruin_ , she thought remembering the encounter and how the doctor alerted the geth in the lower level of the ruin, in her confusion over whether the human was real or not.

"Your squad is an intimidating bunch, Commander."

Shepard nodded.  _Very true_. Initially, the officer had not considered Dr. T'soni's forthcoming nature as a response to her people or the protocol she employed, but it was as likely an answer as gratitude for having pulled her out from under a bloodthirsty krogan and a gaggle of Saren's geth.

"Thanks, Doc," the CO said. Approaching the door to the lab, she knocked and waited for permission to enter.

"Commander, you didn't need to come down here and check on me," T'soni stated, shoulders hunched and looking up at Shepard through long lashes.

"That's just how I am. Dr. Chakwas says you're feeling better."

"She is very kind, and quite knowledgeable. And I am feeling much better, I was just a little fatigued. The last few days have been a little trying, and the joining can be draining, especially …" Liara shrank back slightly not opting to continue.

"Especially?" Shepard asked, trying to catch the asari's gaze. She preferred to look people in the eye when she spoke with them.

"I wouldn't want to offend you."

The commander waved it off and opted to sit down, it was a calculated move. She was shorter than the asari, but apparently still intimidating to her. In her experience, Shepard had found that sitting down could lessen that, by turning the table of dominance in a conversation. "You won't offend me. I put heavy stock in honesty."

"You are very strong willed, Shepard. And your mind is a … busy place." The archaeologist clasped her hands tightly behind her back. Shepard could not be sure she if the behavior of the asari was a sign of nerves or a result of the incidents on Therum, or some combination of the two.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make it difficult for you."

"No, I just didn't expect it. And it was quite interesting." She laughed lightly and slipped into her chair. "For a military officer, your mind is surprisingly circuitous. I melded with a turian once, we were studying a ruin together," Liara explained, the meekness in her voice and the look on her face suggested she did not want Shepard to get the wrong impression. "His mind was very ordered and linear. Yours, however, was nothing like his."

Shepard just nodded, with the barest hint of a smile.

"And I am rambling." Liara closed her eyes and shook her head.

"It's fine."

"I'm very sorry, Commander."

"It's all right, Dr. T'soni," the officer repeated, setting her hand on the asari's forearm. "Though it is a little strange to hear someone talking about roaming around in my brain."

"I'll try to refrain in the future." The timid demureness returned to the alien's voice, replacing the momentary excitement she had shown moments earlier.

"We're heading for the Citadel. I'm going to speak with the Council about placing you under their protection," the commander divulged with a note of finality.

"Oh," Liara replied as she looked up at the commander again.

The look on the asari's face was surprise, mixed with a little fear. Shepard raised her eyebrows in question. "You had something else in mind?"

"I rather think I might be safer here. On this ship."

Shepard just watched her for a moment, considering the option. Given the information she had on Dr. T'soni, Shepard had decided not to propose it. The little bit she knew about the woman, and her demure nature combined in the officer's mind to suggest she might rather not be part of what was happening around her. The commander, uncertain the archaeologist possessed skills she could utilize beyond the information on the Protheans, knew full well that a briefing on that could be had from a well-read intelligence analyst, but there something in that careful gaze that suggested the asari might be more than she seemed at first glance.

"I could help. I've spent most of my life studying the Protheans, and I was trained, in biotics. I've also had weapon training." She detailed the civilian training she had in using her biotics, which all asari receive, and the fact that she also used it to protect herself on very remote dig sites prone to being raided. She also divulged the extra training her mother had insisted on.

"I could help," she pleaded, repeating herself; her voice becoming slightly smaller under the Spectre's gaze.

"You're sure?"

Liara nodded, wide-eyed. "Absolutely."

The Spectre stood and looked down at her. "If you decide it's all too much. Just let me know. Don't be afraid to tell me if you feel out of your depth. Honesty, remember?"

"Thank you, Shepard."

"Welcome aboard, Dr. T'soni."

With that the human slipped out of the lab. Lieutenant Commander Shepard offered a quick nod to Dr. Chakwas on her way out of the medbay. She figured within a few days the scientist would be settled enough to join in the combat evaluations she was planning on conducting with the team. Her training was all civilian, but that did not really discourage the commander. It was likely there could be some situations where having a powerful biotic could come in handy. And as a source of information on the Protheans, T'soni could not really be easily replaced.

The  _Normandy's_  dance card was filling up fast and there were several requests cluttering her proverbial appointment calendar that needed to be kept on their return to the Citadel. Since the asari planned to stay aboard, the commander decided on the fly that she was going to postpone their return to the station. There were a few requests that asked for priority consideration. As such, she messaged Pressly quickly to let him know that they would need to rearrange the plans after the next mission to accommodate those other requests. Plus, by delaying return to the Citadel she might just reinforce the little non-verbal communication she had delivered to the Council earlier.

Slipping out of medical, Shepard stretched her arms over her head as she rolled her neck from side to side feeling the disadvantage of taking a cold shower after the mission. Her hands kneaded at the tight muscles there as she winced slightly at the discomfort. Cold showers always made her muscles tight afterward. Though after the volcanic heat of Therum there was no way that Shepard could have even considered a hot shower, which was her preference. In fact, despite the tightness in her neck and shoulders, the heat of that planet seemed to stick with her.

Shepard knelt by the unit near the coffee maker and looked in. She could not help but smile. "Alenko, you are a prince among marines," she said softly as she reached for the canteen.

"Appreciate the thought, Commander," he replied from across the room.

She shut the door a little harder than she had intended.

"Sorry, Shepard. Didn't mean to startle you."

She smiled slightly recalling that the phrase was precisely that she had said to him in the wards, and for a second she wondered if it was intentional.

"So you, uh, … cut comms on the Council, huh?" he asked with a trace of a smirk on his lips as he glanced over at her.

She laughed as she turned. "Damn, I am gonna kill Joker."

He shook his head in disagreement. "I was on the bridge when it happened. I heard the click command."

She nodded as she raised the canteen to her lips and took a drink. "So by that, I take it  _you_  are the reason Joker knew what it meant?"

"Yeah. He's been around the block, but that was a new one for him. I worked with a few guys from an Arcturus Team once, and happened to remember."

"Appreciate it," she replied.

"How's Dr. T'soni doing?" he asked as she crossed the room.

Shepard could see he had something he wanted to say. "Chakwas cleared her. She wants to stick around."

He looked at her quizzically. "She's a civilian, ma'am."

"So are Tali and Wrex. Tali has even less combat training than that little archaeologist, given the biotic education all asari receive from childhood." Shepard was not arguing the fact, just trying to point out that Liara's inclusion would not be unique.

"I heard about that. It's like part of the core curriculum, right?"

"Reading. Writing. Arithmetic. And Moving Stuff with your Brain. Very advanced," Shepard chided.

"Your training was like that too? With the asari tutor?" he asked curiously.

"Not in the least. They didn't find me until I was fifteen." Most biotics were detected early and monitored by medical personnel and implanted in early adolescence to allow their brain to adapt and "grow into" the implantation. Then after the healing process was deemed complete, usually about a few months after they were amped, they were trained to use their biotics for the first time. Though Shepard had been in the typical age range for implantation, between 13 and 16, she had almost slipped past them.

"That old?"

Shepard smirked at him. "Yeah. Looking back I think Mom and Da knew, or at least suspected. But they didn't know any more about it than I did. And I think it spooked them, even more than everything else. Or maybe they didn't think I was amp-able and kept it under their hats," she disclosed with a shrug as she watched her fingers toying with the lid on the container in her hands. Then she turned the tables. "How about you? What was your training like? Just the Alliance crash course after basic?"

"Not quite." Kaidan stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at his boots. "No. I was part of a pilot program a while back. The Biotics Acclimation and Training program run out on Gagarin Station, they called it BAaT."

Shepard had heard of the program, but only barely-she knew the name, but nothing specific about it.

"It was mostly L2s, some of the older kids were L1s. It was only in the works for a handful of years before they shut it down." He looked up at her and he bit his bottom lip quickly. "Conatix brought in a turian to train us."

"Turians, really?" That was surprising given not only turian-human relations on the whole and the Hierarchy's speculation about biotics. They were cautious with anyone showing signs of biotics and it seemed strange to her that the Alliance would opt for a turian instructor for a human program, especially given the dominance of other races in biotic theory. "Why not the asari?" she asked, realizing quickly that was not the point.

They both knew it was a rhetorical question, and he did not really address it, because there really was no answer for that question. "Conatix was still untouchable. No one questioned them. Everything they touched was gold as far as the Alliance was concerned. Kids just wound up there. You'd come home from school, some guys in suits and lab coats would should up and sell it hard. They made it seem like the only real option for people like us." He glanced up at her for a moment.

His voice was a bit strained as he continued, "The way my Dad bought into it, you'd have thought it was a personal request sent down from Command. The exposure scared him. He spent most of my life wondering what he was going to do with me. Like I was some ticking time bomb. The more he read about eezo exposure and biotic potential the weirder things got at home. By the time I got to Jump Zero, it was almost a relief." Kaidan shook his head at nothing then crossed his arms over his chest.

"But Brain Camp was not what any of us were expecting from what we were told," he admitted straightening and stuffing his hands back in his pockets. His inability to decide what to do with his hands clued Shepard in to his discomfort with the topic. "They pitch it like boarding school with some biotic training that would help us  _master our abilities_. It wasn't quite that way. You either came out of there a Superman or a wreck. A lot of kids cracked," he stated, looking up at her guardedly.

When his eyes met hers, he went silent. He was gauging her response. And from the look on his face, she was nearly certain he wanted her to say something.

"I had no idea. I'd heard the name, but beyond the barest insinuation about it," Shepard stated, shaking her head at her lack of information.

"Yeah," he added, swallowing audibly as he struggled to maintain eye contact with her. "After it shut down, people tried to brush it under the rug. No one wanted to deal with any of it."

"What happened?"

"Kind of what's happening to you now, ma'am. If you don't mind me saying?"

"Speak freely, Lieutenant," she replied with her brow furrowed at the suggestion.

"I mean people are just dropping you into the middle of something they really don't know anything about and expecting a miracle. Expecting you to Superman it or crack." He leaned toward her. "Doesn't it feel a little off? Like they really don't want you to be able to do it?"

"It's not the first time I've been given an assignment like this," she noted, sensing his concern. "They are being cautious. The Council knows I'm Alliance. They know I'll utilize those resources, which means anything that comes to me goes to Command. I'm not going to speculate about what they may or may not be holding back, because in the long run, it won't do us any good. We just have to work with what we have and what we can scrounge up."

"So you're good with just being left to twist in the wind?"

Her gaze sharpened and he straightened a little in response, noticing he pushed on a nerve. "Seems to be a trend I'm caught in the middle of right now, Lieutenant. And I'll handle the Council doing it like I did the Alliance. I'll suck it up and do the job anyway. Apparently, it's what I do," she added as a biting aside, recalling the conversation she had with Anderson before they left the Citadel.

"Sorry, Shepard."

"No," she replied. "You're good, and it is frustrating. I don't like not knowing what's going on. And I haven't heard back from Intelligence about the contents of the files that the Council turned over. Our guys can't seem to break Saren's encryption, and there is no word if the Council has either. Add to that the shocking lack of information we had on T'soni when we set out. And in all honesty I really thought we'd at least have a breadcrumb on Saren to follow by now. "

"I'm sure they're working on it," he started. When she looked up at him incredulously, they both laughed.

"Yeah, they are," Shepard said. "But it doesn't mean we'll get what we need when we need it. But I'll work it out. Always do," she added, looking at her hands. "I should probably get out of your hair, and Command is probably waiting for me to file the final reports."

"Listen, Shepard. Umm… Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time."

"Sure thing," she replied, hoping it seemed casual. She turned to head back to her quarters.

"Commander?"

Shepard stopped and looked at him over her shoulder.

"Do … do you make a habit of getting this personal with everyone?" he asked her with a great deal of hesitation in his voice. Possibly because he realized he had just told her more about himself than he had since they met, or possibly because he realized he was being more open than he usually was with the people he served with.

"I do like to get to know my people."

He did not look relieved, as he tapped his palm with the tool he had picked up off the panel when she started to leave.

"And, no, I don't make a habit of getting this personal," she replied carefully, realizing both the truth and the implication of what she admitted.

She suddenly realized that she knew very little about the childhood of very few of those she counted as friends. Shepard only knew those things about the people she was closest to-Caz, Lin, Jensen. She knew several people professionally, their skills and talents, even their quirks. But she knew very little about them personally. The realization struck her sharply, especially because she found herself wanting to know those types of things about the lieutenant.

His gaze was unwavering and she seemed to see the moment the significance of what she said hit him. His warm brown eyes narrowed on her and uncertainty seemed to knit his brow. And there was something else there, but she could not quite classify it. Or maybe she was just afraid to.

"We'll talk again later. And thanks again for the water." She turned, finally escaping around the corner and into her cabin. Shepard noticed she was breathing a little heavier and tried to calm herself by pressing the still cool canteen to her neck.

When the door slid closed she leaned against the bulkhead and stared up at the overheads in the ceiling. This was not something she was used to. She was not this woman-she did not lead with her heart. Nyx had always led with her head. And right now she was out of her depth.

"What the hell are you doing, Shepard?" she whispered to herself.

She felt light-headed and her pulse was racing. Nyx slid down the wall and opened the canteen. After downing several large swallows, she rested her elbows on her knees and looked up at the ceiling.

 _Is it the situation? Is it the stress? The magnitude of it all?_  Questions piled on top of themselves in her head. She really should not be concerned with why she was attracted to him. As she drew back from herself and looked at everything they were facing, this seemed like such a tiny little thing. But when she started to look at what was right in front of her, the situation gained more prominence. In all her questions about the external factors that might be pushing them toward one another, she overlooked a different more pressing one.

 _Could it just be him? Could she just be drawn to him?_  Then came the inevitable questions.  _Why? Why him? Why now?_

It rang in her head a moment and she started to look back. Even before things became unwieldy it had been there. Even before she knew who he was it was there. When she had playfully commented on the tightness of his t-shirt, snapping the sleeve against his bicep, it had simmered there under the surface. Hell, it had been a struggle only to kiss him on the cheek; control that she was thrilled to have exercised the next morning when she saw him on the bridge of the  _Normandy_  and found out precisely who he was. But now it just seemed that the speed and force with which they were being drawn together had multiplied exponentially.

For a moment she allowed herself to wallow in the idea. Then, just as quickly, another part of her doused the warm feeling, literally. With a quick movement she splashed icy water from the canteen in her own face and sat there blinking as the cool liquid chilled the skin of her face and chest. "You are his commanding officer," she scolded herself. "You cannot use your influence in such a manner. You're a better officer than this, Shepard. Would you really throw away your whole career for something like this? You did not work this hard to throw it all away from some hormone-laden fantasy that's probably all in your head anyway."

She took a deep breath. A shiver overtook her, and made her smile in the hopes that the heat of Therum had finally dissipated.


	12. Evaluative Maneuvers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simians, geth, and pirates… Oh My!!! Throw in some rough terrain and the crew finds out why Joker teases Shepard mercilessly about her driving, while Kaidan gets a glimpse at the lengths the commander went to in order to reach her goals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much love and appreciation to LadyAmesIndy, Chyrstis, and MyParamour for their wonderful attention to detail. Also, a bit of good news, it would appear I may have beaten down the block on the next chapter so things might return to some semblance of normal in terms of updating.

**12 Evaluative Maneuvers**

**i.**

The Mako was packed as it sped across the mainly open terrain of Eletania. Admiral Hackett made it plainly clear in his message that retrieval of the data module from this probe was vital to Alliance efforts to combat the Geth on Eden Prime and developing fronts. The request sounded rehearsed. Likely, it was-the practiced precise words of some scrawny analyst in some tiny cubicle somewhere. Regardless, the mission presented as fairly straight forward until the team located said probe. The small electrocuted simian creature at the crash location suggested that things were going to get hairy, literally.

Liara sneezed as she placed one of the little creatures on the ground. "I think I'm allergic to them," she stated, sniffling a little.

Tali sighed slightly. "It's not here, Shepard."

"Yep," Shepard replied with an exasperated tone as she looked around the little nesting area for a moment. "Load up."

Tali was the last one in, well, before Shepard that was. She noticed quickly that the commander was always the last one to enter the Mako, or the  _Normandy_ , or any place she considered safe. Transversely, Shepard was always the first one out of the vehicle, or through a door. The quarian realized early on it was the officer's way of protecting them. Shepard placed herself between her team and possible danger. Upon entry, she would be the first one anyone saw, and the one most likely to become their target. It was Shepard's way of keeping them as safe as she could, given the circumstance.

Comforting as it may have been, the thought was wiped from Tali's head as the Mako skidded to a shrieking halt at the next location.

"Is that absolutely necessary, Commander?" Liara queried from beside the quarian in the back of the vehicle.

Kaidan looked back and shook his head slightly, discouraging the question, while Shepard ignored it entirely as she hopped out of the vehicle, weapon up, and Tali presumed eyes scanning the area from the way her head turned.

"Less worrying about my driving and more finding my module," she called over her shoulder toward the open door after a few moments.

Garrus had told Tali that Shepard got a little testy when people criticized her driving, while she was actually driving the Mako. The commander was not nearly so sensitive about it when he joked with her on the ship, or so it seemed, or maybe she just gave him a little more leeway then.

They finally located the module in a colony that had claimed an abandoned mine, but the geth had found the fire team in the same dark space. It was cramped quarters to say the least and even though the synthetics had only sent one squad there were way too many weapons in that tight space for any of the  _Normandy's_  team to be comfortable with.

Judging from the response, the geth really wanted whatever was on that module. The synthetics were pushing hard at the four-man team and seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Tali could not help the panicked little screech she made, although it embarrassed her to have reacted that way, a part of her was thankful for it. The reaction called attention to the charging Juggernaut, which Alenko launched backward with his biotics. The move allowed the pair of them to take it down easily.

The three snipers had been trickier, but Shepard made a suggestion that made smart use of her team's skills and quick work of the shielded synthetics.

"Overloads all around, and a singularity right in the middle of it, if you would, Doctor T'Soni," the commander ordered as she climbed up on top of a stack of crates with the lieutenant's help. Once the distraction began, the lithe blonde officer put down two of the three with the long rifle she carried; the third of which had been lifted by Liara's biotics became easy pickings for the rest of the squad.

Exiting the mine cautiously, they confirmed that the geth had either thrown everything they had at the  _Normandy's_  team, or opted to retreat after the same decimated their ambush. The second seemed the most likely given there were no signs of the delivery vehicle that dropped the platforms. Shepard's eyes scanned the area as her team loaded up, the commander was more attentive here than she had been at the simian colonies, Tali noticed, but that was not unexpected.

"All right, Doc," Shepard said, calling up the next location on the topographic map.

Tali'Zorah groaned a little more loudly than she intended when the location of the Prothean site came up on the topographic map.  _This is going to be an ugly ride. So much worse than Therum_. Liara and Kaidan had been lucky thus far. Most of the terrain on Eletania was flat and Shepard had mostly kept the vehicle off the hills and rises. But there was no way they were going to reach that location without some off-roading, as Shepard gleefully referred to it, usually with a slight hint of the maniacal in her tone.

As the commander sped off, the young quarian tried to steel herself for what was coming, though deep down she knew there really was no way to prepare for that kind of terrain and the way Shepard would likely navigate it. When they returned to the  _Normandy_ , the three passengers scrambled out of the vehicle glad that they were in the hands of a much more talented and relatively calm driver on that vessel.

The loud thumps announced the return of the CO's crew, even though the ship had already made that announcement before any of them exited the Mako.

"Holy hell, Shepard," Kaidan groaned as he leaned against the side of the vehicle. "I thought they were just kidding."

Garrus and Wrex had already had their turns as Shepard's passengers, though the returning crew would have called them victims. The turian looked over at the lieutenant pointedly and said, "Turians do not joke about-"

"Anything," Joker interrupted over the intercom, which made the alien glare at the ceiling while the others chuckled in response.

Shepard hopped out of the Mako, both her boots landing with a dull clunk, it was much more subdued than the exits of her teammates. "I don't know what the issue is. The log says it stayed level almost the entire time."

The commander had a ritual to her return. Tali watched as she cleared her weapons, checking the safeties, before laying them on the table Gunnery Chief Williams proclaimed as 'her land.' The rest of the squad followed suit. Ashley was good with guns and took that chore as her responsibility. Along with Garrus' occasional assistance, she kept the team's weapons in prime condition. Williams also kept her eyes open for modifications and weapons that might better suit each of them.

Before they had left the Citadel initially, the chief had procured a light but strikingly powerful shotgun for Tali asking if it might be something that would work for her. Williams had even gone so far as to escort the quarian to the small Alliance range in the HQ there, where they tried it out. It had surprised the quarian, but made her feel even more welcome, like she was truly part of the team.

"Yeah, it's the almost that got me, I think," Kaidan retorted as he laid his pistol down on the table. "How the hell does a person even learn to drive like that?"

The commander shrugged, with a trace of a grin on her lips.

"That's not driving," Wrex interjected with a gruff grumbling chortle. "I don't know what the hell it is. But driving is not the word. Though I wouldn't mind knowing how you made her stand up and dance like that, Shepard?" he added, winking at the short blonde leaning against the lockers.

The commander laughed heartily. "I'm not giving you  _all_  my secrets, Wrex."

"Yes," Garrus interjected from behind his console, "but if you continue to drive like that you may find yourself alone out there."

"All right. Have it your way," she replied with a daring glare cast at the turian. "First person to plant a wet sloppy kiss on Wrex gets to drive next time we're groundside." She poked her thumb at the krogan to her right and raised her eyebrows, glancing around the bay.

No one moved initially. They all just stared at one another. Eyes moved around the room, from face to face, all of them waiting for someone to take up the challenge.

"What? No takers?" the commander taunted.

Finally Garrus slapped his hand on his table near his console. "All right, Wrex. Pucker up."

The krogan grabbed his shotgun and trained it on Garrus.

"Try it." The wry smile was equal parts playful and menacing, as was the very visceral growl underlying his voice.

Tali'Zorah decided to play along. While Garrus had Wrex distracted, she crept up on the krogan. His eyes turned to her when she set her hand on his forearm. He just watched her as she leaned her mask against his thick jaw. For the sake of drama and emphasis, the quarian punctuated the gesture with a loud and pronounced smacking sound.

Glancing at the surprised faces around her, she patted Wrex's arm. "Guess I'm driving from now on," she trilled.

Shepard shook her head and laughed as the bay erupted with enthusiastic cheers and clapping. Tali could feel it. They were becoming a team; they were becoming friends, with Shepard and with one another. They were beginning to get a feel for each other, who one another was, how they worked. And most of all they got along even outside of the combat and the missions.

**ii.**

Admiral Hackett had the  _Normandy_  on speed dial, or so it seemed. He also seemed to have given out her frequency to every officer with a star on their shoulder outside of the Sol system. After every mission debrief, Shepard met with Pressly to discuss the latest incoming information, which usually left Joker with an ever shifting set of coordinates.

While the team had seen more combat during the  _Normandy's_  initial berth at the Citadel than Shepard anticipated, it was on a highly limited scale which did not allow much of the team to find a rhythm with one another. Given the level of expertise and experience of the diverse personalities that had inadvertently found themselves as part of the  _Normandy's_  crew, she knew it would likely be a fairly easy transition from unit to team. The seven humans and aliens that comprised the  _Normandy's_  combat unit were incredibly skilled, some possessed even more combat experience than the commander. Operators of their caliber were hard to find, and to have assembled a team that skilled by chance was practically unheard of.

The missions and situations the Alliance forwarded her were calm by comparison to what she expected to find once they got some decent leads on Saren. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she made the right call in her approach. Anderson mentioned he could reel in a few favors and get her access to Pinnacle Station, though, since she was a Spectre the favors were probably moot. That was a safer environment to evaluate her team. But that was part of the point. Her team needed to be pushed not coddled.

_Once they find a groove, we can hone it in a simulator,_  she told herself yet again. Prior to Eletania she paired them up based on skills, then moved on to considerations of style and weapon preferences. But over the next few weeks each one of them had the chance to work with everyone else on the team. It also allowed Shepard the chance to see how people worked with one another as well as how each of them fit with her particular approach and her operational tempo.

The topic of conversation after missions focused squarely on people's evaluations of one another's performance, as well as the overall successes and failures of the mission at hand. With operators of this caliber it was not uncommon to have them evaluate one another after missions. Shepard kept most of her comments to herself, but she did oversee the conversations between the squad mates. They were all experienced operators with their own styles and preferences, and she was hoping their differences would make for a stronger unit that knew and understood one another and could anticipate their fellows in the field.

Even Shepard was not immune from the evaluation of her squad. Wrex told her to trade in her pistol for a real gun. "A real gun requires two hands and all your attention," Wrex had noted in that rumbling voice that made Shepard smile. She considered his suggestions about the type of shotgun she should consider using in close combat situations, even though it was really one of her least favorite weapon types because of the range restriction. Just because she could charge into someone's personal space did not mean she did it all that often. It was usually a defense or protective mechanism for her, as were most of her biotics.

Garrus adjusted her prone sniping posture and taught her a breathing technique he swore would help her with her aim-the first few times she had tried it, though, it had made her dizzy and she nearly passed out. She tried to find a way to make that work without causing her to hyperventilate, but with limited success.

Shepard continued to dance around her feelings and though there was flirting and chatting, she and the lieutenant both seemed to be trying to keep things as close to a professional level as possible given her penchant to forget about the uniforms when they spoke. The commander found herself occasionally assessing the unfamiliar situation, which was almost more trying than her fascination with the man in her chain of command.

All Nyx could decide about it was that the two of them worked well together. As a squad leader and an officer it was hard to overlook the way his skill set played well off hers. For that reason above others, she was loathe to complicate or jeopardize the mission or the team for something as simple as an attraction or an infatuation, which was how she chose to classify things. Thus she kept her interest to herself as best she could, though the lieutenant did not make that easy on her.

The archaeologist and the commander also became friendly. Shepard wanted to know more about the Protheans, in hopes that it could clear up the images and maybe give her some way to reconcile the nightmares that plagued her. T'Soni remained skittish around the officer, however, which Nyx just chocked up to the asari's different context of things. Applying her usual tactics, Shepard bred familiarity with all the members of the team, and each time they spoke, Liara seemed to relax a little more.

Toward the end of one particularly lively debriefing, in which Tali and Kaidan argued with Garrus over the proper application of omni-gel, Shepard ducked out only to have the XO grab her by the elbow as she exited the communications room. The two of them removed to her quarters to address a priority request from Admiral Hackett. Command had intelligence on a group of pirates kidnapping people of all species on remote colonies, and their signature had been picked up in close proximity to Alliance interests. As such command had issued a request for a preemptive interception of the group.

"I must say, Commander, I'm rather surprised that's the route they want to take with this issue," Pressly noted as the doors of her quarters opened.

"Really?" she asked in a tone thick with skepticism. "You were at Elysium."

"Yes, but this is not the same thing."

"Same type of people. Rush in disable everything they can, grab up as many bodies as they can stuff in the hold, and run. They've done it in a dozen systems or more, and now this band's signature has been seen near Alliance colonies."

Pressly shrugged and spoke a little more quietly as they moved toward the bridge. "But this group hasn't made a move yet."

"Against  _us_. They have, however, hit a small salarian colony and they are believed to be behind the kidnapping of the crew of that batarian vessel that was found disabled in Caleston Rift a few months back."

"That is not our …" Pressly stopped speaking when her progress up the stairs halted and she stared up at him.

Shepard's eyes never left his, but she did take a beat before she said anything, then taking a step closer to him the commander spoke clearly though low enough to ensure they were the only two that heard what she had to say. "As long as I'm on this vessel it is our duty, our responsibility, and not just because the Council made me a Spectre. This is precisely what I do. What I've always done. First for the Alliance, and now I just have an extra flag to carry when I'm doing it. Are you reading me, Mr. Pressly?"

She could see him working his mind around what she revealed, coming to terms with the vague answer to the question he would not ask, knew better than to ask, almost feared to ask. There was more truth than he knew in her insinuation that the Alliance ran pre-emptive strikes against pirates, especially those targeting Council races. The Alliance was quick and especially quiet when going after batarian pirates, given the bad blood between the races and the regular threats from the Hegemony.

"Five-by-five, ma'am," the XO replied after a moment.

"Excellent. Now let's get this bird turned around," she said as they continued up the stairs.

She gave Joker a series of coordinates for Sharjila and told him to take the short route. The Alliance had forwarded her bits and pieces of intelligence on several people, places, and situations they wanted her to "look into", which usually translated into verbs and orders that usually did not fly well, even over secure channels. One thing was certain, the  _Normandy's_  inaugural cruise seemed likely to make a few people's heads turn, as well as being busy.

"Alenko. T'Soni. You'll be suiting up for this trip. We're going to ground in-" the commander looked at Pressly, her hand still on the console switch for the intercom which was broadcasting ship wide.

"Two hours and twelve minutes, ma'am."

"You heard the man. T-minus two hours. I'll see you both in the cargo bay."

**iii.**

Shepard was always the first one ready, so Lieutenant Alenko was not the least bit surprised to see her in the cargo bay when he arrived ten minutes prior to the prescribed time. He was, however, a little surprised to see the asari there. As such, he merely leaned against the Mako as Garrus scurried about, running the pre-drop checklist on the vehicle.

The commander sat perched atop the crates next to the chief's station, twirling that knife in her hands. He had not seen it come out in combat since that first visit to the Citadel during the incident outside Chora's Den, though Garrus mentioned her skewering some salarian once. Wrex had joked that all she managed to do was make him hungry by doing it. Shepard's mind seemed to be preoccupied, or maybe that was just his wishful thinking.

Shaking his head, he reminded himself if she even saw it, his attraction likely would not even make the list of things troubling her mind. So he observed, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he tried to appear relaxed. Liara yammered away, smiling and blinking those big blue eyes at Shepard. Something about the doctor set his teeth on edge. The rising tightness in his jaw went relatively unnoticed until Ashley appeared beside him, an audible sigh announcing her arrival.

"So, pirates, huh?" she asked absently, glancing over at him.

"Looks, like," Alenko replied tersely as he tore his eyes away from the flirtatious asari.

"Scans show anything good?"

He shook his head and winced, his eyes darting back to Shepard for a second, before moving to the turian's console sitting a few feet away. "Not really. Looks like a pretty standard pre-fab from the imaging, though the scans gave us nothing. Which only suggests they're running some decent tech."

"You worried at all?"

He looked at her quickly. "About?"

"Taking the good doctor, there. She's not exactly a commando with High Command."

"Evaluations say she can handle herself. She seemed pretty solid on Eletania-shouldn't be anything to worry about." He shrugged noncommittally.

"Except that all three of you are biotics," Ashley noted with a laugh. "It's like putting your eggs all in one basket."

The confidence in his smile seemed to surprise her. "If you're going to put them all somewhere, it is the place to go. Biotics can play off each other in some striking ways. You should peek over Joker's shoulder while we're on the ground-you might get a surprise or two watching that feed."

"I might just take you up on that," Williams replied with a laugh. "Good hunting, L-T."

Joker's voice rang through the cavernous space. "Ten minutes, Commander."

"That's my cue," the chief noted, punching his shoulder, before she crossed to the weapons locker.

With the announcement the commander sheathed the blade and slipped off the crates fluidly. The way she moved still took him by surprise; there was something graceful and delicate about the movements even when shrouded in thicker armor. Shepard's movement stopped the asari in mid-sentence and the sudden shift in the officer's demeanor seemed to rattle the demure alien. Kaidan strode across the deck to gather his weapons as well.

**iv.**

Shepard growled as she ducked back into cover. Liara glanced at her for a moment before the tech burst on the other side of the wall made the researcher instinctively cringe back.

"All right, that's enough dicking around," Shepard insisted as she rolled out of cover long enough to tug a man into the air.

Liara unconsciously gripped the wall when she felt it. A glance at the lieutenant and she knew she was not out of her mind. The way he leaned, eyes closing slightly as he fought the pull told her Alenko felt it, too.

"Ah, ha! Moving up," Shepard announced after a three round burst finished off the man she lifted.

Both the asari and the human male, laid down covering fire as the commander scrambled to a spot about twenty feet ahead them. When the little blonde popped up and threw a mercenary against a wall, Liara grabbed onto the lieutenant to steady herself against the forceful pulling sensation that seemed to accompany the commander's biotics.

"Is that her?" she whispered as she ducked behind a crate.

"I think so," Kaidan replied, popping a heat sync into his pistol.

"What is she doing?"

The lieutenant shook his head and shrugged. He overloaded a man trying to move around behind Shepard before moving in her direction himself. "Move up," Kaidan ordered, pulling Liara back to the situation.

Their enemies were dug in. The building offered a great deal of cover, which highly limited the success of Shepard's usual combat mechanics, which forced her to rely more heavily on her biotics. Once they neutralized the threat, Kaidan and Shepard searched the base for intelligence. Liara, however, occupied herself with trying to determine what happened earlier. Then she thought back on all the times she had accompanied the commander on missions.

"Goddess," she whispered, realizing that Shepard had never used her biotics when Liara was on the ground with the team.

"What's up?" Shepard asked from across the room as she downloaded the data off computer system the slaver had there.

"Umm … Nothing. I think," Liara replied slowly, her eyes darting from one officer to the other and back to the commander.

Shepard's eyes moved from the asari to Alenko, trying to pick up on something she might have missed. "Oh-kay."

Alenko unlatched the door of the wall safe he hacked open. "I think she just realized how often you  _don't_  use your biotics, ma'am."

Shepard furrowed her brow at him. "So?"

"Are you aware that you project your field quite wildly?" Liara asked rather demurely.

"Excuse me?" Nyx choked, turning from the safe.

"I think it saps your power. I mean when you lifted that one gentleman you really only got him a few feet off the ground."

"A few feet was all I needed to get my shot," the commander replied dead pan, crossing her arms over her chest rather defensively.

"She's right," Kaidan agreed carefully, looking over at Shepard, while backing the asari's assessment.

The commander turned her head slowly and glared at him. He laughed lightly and held his hands up in mock surrender.

"Has anyone ever suggested that you have an issue with your precision?" Liara queried.

Kaidan nodded as if to confirm that it had been noted in the past.  _Or perhaps he merely agrees that her control is lacking_.

Shepard sighed. "Can we clear this place? The two of you can evaluate me later, somewhere where we're less likely to be shot at?"

**v.**

Despite her friendships with Liara and Kaidan, Shepard could not wait to get out of the Mako after they returned from Sharjila. Each of them was strikingly powerful, and well versed in biotic theory. Both were also very opinionated, the commander learned on the return to the  _Normandy_. Dahlia Dantius' growing slavery ring's activities had been curtailed, but the two biotics were more focused on their evaluation of Shepard's biotic abilities than the intelligence that suggested her association with other independent bands of raiders passing through the sector. Her teammates distraction left the commander suddenly feeling like she was stuck somewhere between her old asari tutor Ceramea and her Alliance trainer Petra Vanek.

While it started in the pirate stronghold, it picked back up immediately after reentering the Mako. By the time they returned to the ship, they were no longer lecturing the commander at least. Instead, both directed their assertions toward one another. The argument was no longer about what her failures as a biotic were; they debated over how to best help her overcome it. Her shortcomings were the only thing the pair agreed upon.

"The amount of power she is putting into her movements is making them unpredictable and bordering on the uncontrollable. She needs to begin refocusing on precision," Liara repeated, for about the third time by Shepard's count, as the asari hopped out of the Mako.

Shepard escaped next, and really thought of it in those terms. Usually she was the last person out of the Mako when they returned to the ship, but Nyx needed not to be in the middle of that fight any longer. The commander was slowly losing her ability to listen. Their  _discussion_ of her biotics ran non-stop for the thirty minutes it took the team to rendezvous with the  _Normandy_.

Kaidan followed, elaborating on his opinion much more calmly. "You cannot completely retrain someone from scratch in the middle of a combat situation. You just have to refine it in increments. Trying to rewrite it all from the beginning would be futile. Otherwise every time she went back in the field, she would fall back into what she's done all along. It would negate any progression made, leaving her right back at square one again."

Wrex and Garrus looked at the commander who had silently crossed the bay toward the lockers in order to disarm. Shepard shrugged and mouthed, "What?"

"It is clear that the only way Shepard can regain control and better utilize her substantial power is by completely retraining her mind to use her biotics properly." The doctor's tone suggested she was adamant.

Before the Lieutenant could make a retort, Wrex slammed a big hand on the metal containers behind him, interrupting the discussion and drawing all eyes to him. "Shepard's fine. She can take 'em down however they come. Leave it at that."

Everyone just looked around the room for a second without a word.

"Debrief in twenty," the commander announced, laying her pistol on the table near the chief. Nyx retreated across the space without another word until she made the decision. She topped, pointed at the two biotics, and stated, "And if either of you says anything about my biotics in the next forty-eight hours, you're sleeping in the Mako for a month."

She turned and stepped onto the elevator. Her first stop, as usual was the showers, where she considered the argument she had been unable to escape. It was a criticism she had heard from the start. Anytime her biotics were evaluated there were always the same lines:  _lack of precision_  and  _bleeding magnitude_. It mostly went unnoticed in the field because she had always been the only biotic on her teams. Occasionally she worked with them, but it had been rare in her specialty.

No matter how many times she heard it, Shepard never really had the occasion or desire to address it. Working with two powerful biotics might offer the chance she was never willing to take in the past. Of course, she decided, she would speak with them one-on-one. That fight was not something she wanted to restart. Speaking to each in turn might curtail the revitalization of that argument, because there was no chance in hell Shepard would broach the subject in front of the pair of them again.

None of the criticisms or conversations about the prowess of their fellows had ever taken the bent that Dr. T'Soni and Lieutenant Alenko's conversation had. It was a little strange to see the two that everyone counted among the calmest of them all reacting so vehemently. Shepard chalked it up to their desire to help compounded by the strength of their conviction and belief in their chosen method.

Regardless of why they were both so intent, she was entirely serious about her threat. Nyx's relationship with her biotics was tenuous at best; she did not seem destined to become the shining example of vanguard prowess that her Alliance trainer or her asari tutor had wanted. And after sitting between two arguing biotics for near on an hour, the commander had heard enough on that subject for the foreseeable future.

**vi.**

The  _Normandy's_  arrival on the Citadel went mainly overlooked. The crew received a shift of leave, which was all the one-day turn around could accommodate. That time would also allow for a full resupply while the Alliance offloaded the unexpected cargo the team picked up on Edolus. Shepard and her team had located Kahoku's men and she made the decision on the ground that they would forego standard procedure and return the remains to the Alliance themselves. It had created a bit of a tense situation between Shepard and Wrex, but that worked itself out as those things usually did. Pressly and Adams remained on board left to handle turning over that precious cargo, while Shepard donned her blues and took on the task of delivering the news to the admiral.

This type of conversation was not one she relished, but it was a necessary evil of command. This notification was neither her first, nor would it be the last time she would have to dispense that type of news. It was a burden she bore with the dignity and respect due the men who had perished on that planet. The circumstances, however, still hung in the back of her mind even as Kahoku tersely thanked her for doing what she could. The admiral seemed more agitated than expected and said he would keep in touch before he dismissed her to attend to his own declarations. Shepard knew from experience, that of the announcements to be made in this matter hers had been the easiest by far.

Despite wearing her blues, the commander wandered around the wards for a while, just to have some time off the ship. Her walk took her past the outlook and through the markets, but she wound up standing in the presence of the mass effect relay statue on the Presidium. Nyx could just barely sense that strangely comforting hum as her mind turned to evaluations of her teammates once again.

Having spoken to Dr. T'Soni before she left the ship, Shepard knew the asari felt a comprehensive retaining process would be the best option to overwrite the bad behaviors Nyx exhibited in the use of her biotics. Just thinking about the process the asari had suggested made the commander's head spin.

Shepard still barely thought of herself as a biotic, it was not something she ever concentrated or relied on. Too often, she knew, it was something she turned to as a last resort. Part of her determined long ago that this trend was due, at least, in part to the ways people had reacted to her when they found out. Hell, it had been the way she reacted to herself, when she found out. While most of the people she worked with took it in stride once they saw it and experienced it, and others simply ignored it while remaining concerned and nervous about her, there were those who responded negatively or with extreme prejudice. Early on in her career, Shepard even had one soldier remove his consideration for her team when he found out she was amped.

Nyx was heartily aware of the ways she used her biotics and the evaluations of the same. She had been a crack shot since the age of twelve; she had foolish dreams of laying hands on a sniper tab. At least until she turned fifteen, when she found out she showed "biotic potential." She was implanted shortly thereafter, just a few years before she enlisted. It was at that point she thought her whole future felt like it had crashed down around her feet.

Surprisingly, the person that had been most against Nyx's career goals was the one that went out of her way to try and save them. Her mother, Hannah, had found the Asari tutor, Ceramea-former mercenary vanguard, extremely powerful, and a raging bitch. A nearly sixteen-year-old girl with a soft spot for guns of all types and big dreams of joining the Marines was not the most open and willing biotic student. To no one's surprise, Shepard was not much better about it when she went through the Alliance's vanguard training. Her substantial power and the implanting pegged Nyx as a versatile biotic, or so her file read, though it was not evident in her tactics or combat style. The instructors all claimed Nyx had a great deal of ability, but Shepard only ever saw her biotics as supplemental to her other skills.

She leaned up and let her eyes travel the lines of the relay wishing she could put the idea out of her mind. Wondering why the issue stuck in her brain, Shepard pushed her hands against the metal banister she had been leaning on. In part, she thought it was this place. Being on the Citadel just reminded her that she was a Spectre now, beyond everything else she had to contend with. New expectations might call for the reconsideration of her outlook.

"Commander?"

There was hesitance in the familiar voice that made her stiffen in response. "Lieutenant. Good to see you're taking a little time off the ship."

"Yeah," he said, laughing lightly. She noticed him take in the uncommon uniform. "Think I was experiencing some of that stir crazy you mentioned."

Shepard nodded with a wide smile as she tapped the toe of her shoe against the glass. "So, what brings you to the Presidium?"

"It's quieter than the wards," he observed, leaning on the railing, his eyes raking over the relay in miniature.

"That it is."

"You?"

"Delivered the news to Kahoku."

"Oh. Sorry. That can't have been an easy conversation."

Shepard turned and leaned her back against the glass balustrade. "I think he was expecting it. But even given that, it is never easy to have that conversation. Even when it's just telling the C-O; letters to the family are worse. By far, the hardest has to be putting the flag in their loved one's hands, though. But it's always like they've said it for too long: if everyone doesn't come home, none of us can ever fully come home," she said, concluding any further discussion on that topic.

Neither of them was too concerned with the silence swirling around them. It was oddly comfortable, which made Shepard straighten and tense up.

"When's the ban up?" Kaidan asked playfully, wearing a mischievous grin.

Nyx just closed her eyes and shook her head at the artificial sky. "Do you really think it's that bad?"

"Well, it's not as bad as your driving," he started and she punched him in the shoulder gently. He chuckled in response. "Come on now."

The commander grinned a little.

"Maybe bad is the wrong word," he began again, turning toward her and leaning against the railing. "It's uncontrolled. Just a bit wild. Which runs counter to everything else about you."

"You sure about that, Lieutenant?" she asked with a flirtatious lift of her eyebrow. Nyx regretted it as soon as the words came out of her mouth, but tried not to show it outwardly.

He glanced up at her, with a sly smile that prompted her to turn her attention elsewhere as she mentally chastised herself. He just felt too comfortable, she realized. Standing there with him, talking; it was too easy to be around him, to just be herself around him. It never felt like he expected a particular response or anything from her, really. After stealing a glance in his direction, Kaidan seemed to be unaware of her distraction or maybe he was just ignoring it, though she hoped for the former.

When he continued, Alenko's tone was measured, as if unperturbed by her comment, which made Nyx breath a little easier. "You're a consistently high caliber marksman," he said, his eyes on hers, "qualified on nearly every type of weapon in the Alliance's arsenal. You're martial prowess is well-documented. And I'll be honest, I've never heard of, let alone seen, anyone take down a turian the way you did in the wards."

"That was all Nihlus."

"Might have been his information, but the execution was all yours," Alenko argued.

"That wasn't much more than a standard takedown, and just remembering the right place to put the blade," she explained, trying to remove the extraordinary from that event.

Alenko straightened, making her shift in response in order to keep eye contact. "Well that's what I'm saying. You are precise, controlled, and skilled in all aspects of your combat,  _except_  your biotics. And I think some of that wildness saps the power and result you could be getting. You're, by far, one of the most powerful biotics I've ever seen. But that uncontrolled field is eating up your effectiveness."

Shepard nodded. It was the first time anyone had put it quite that way. "All right. I'll bite." He just looked at her for a moment so she asked, "So, how would you address it? Fix me, Lieutenant."

Nyx closed her eyes for a moment and tilted her head away. She knew she should be more judicious in her conversations with him. But she felt comfortable around him and in the moment she just acted with him the way it felt natural to, like she did with everyone else. It's just in this case, what felt natural was also against Alliance regulations and highly frowned upon.

**vii.**

Lieutenant Alenko turned back toward the statue, gripping the balustrade for a moment before he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the balustrade. "I've only done a little bit of research," he lied, but he figured his commanding officer would prefer not to know that the lieutenant had been looking into ways of addressing this exact issue since their little sparring match. "But the most successful route seems to be in a technique they simply refer to as honing. Think of it like sharpening a blade, you draw it to a finer and sharper edge. Slowly and steadily, you guide your power into a more efficient effect."

"And one would go about this how?" Shepard asked as she studied him.

"It's equivalent rote memorization, like with tables in basic math or learning to dance. You learn the steps, the basics first, which you already have. Then keep doing it. Changing it minutely, making it fit your needs, your style. And eventually you're tripping the light fantastic," he started, casting a tentative smile in her direction before easily falling into the discussion on the research he had been doing.

"The biggest difference between biotics and everything else is the field. But that can be equalized by focus. The sharper your attention when repeating the abilities should naturally help you channel it better and reduce some of that power bleed. But the repetition is the key. Just do it over and over again until the ability is completely directed at your target. Thereby lessening the field projected. Then all, well most, of the power will be funneled into the ability and you won't bleed a massive field and freak people out," he suggested, letting his grin widen.

Nyx returned the smile and nodded thoughtfully as she started to stroll up the walk, Kaidan followed. They talked procedure and theory for a while as they rambled along the pristine walkways of the Presidium. Kaidan was able to comfortably lose himself in the conversation about the methodology and his research. These were the types of exchanges that offered him the most confusion later. He knew eventually they would stop just being two people and be reminded of precisely what and who they were beyond that moment, which would be the point when the luxury of relaxed conversation would end.

"In the end, biotics is like anything else really, outside of the headjack. The more you practice, the more you use it, the better the field control will become." Kaidan shrugged. "I think if you used your abilities more in combat it could help, too."

Shepard nodded with a trace of a wince. "I know. I've heard that enough times before."

"Why don't you?"

"I'm not entirely sure," she replied, stopping near an empty bench and sitting down.

She sat forward a bit and crossed her ankles, before folding her hands delicately in her lap. Waiting for her to continue, the Lieutenant studied her posture. While the finesse and agility remained in her movements, there was something uncharacteristically demure about it.

The look he cast him when she tilted her head up toward him, froze him to that spot. "I kind of always knew where I was going, you know? I had this grand plan."

Certainty, like the kind she spoke of, was something Kaidan had never really known, especially in terms of his future. So much of his life seemed to happen to him, rather than him choosing this path or that. Despite this, he nodded anyway. It was easier to feign awareness than trying to explain.

"Even before my dad gave up his field work and went ship-side, I knew this was where I was headed." She chuckled distractedly as she ran one hand along the hem of her skirt, tugging at it lightly before returning to her lap. "Pissed my mom off to no end."

Her blue eyes met his. The playful sparkle intensified when they widened, as she continued with a little laugh. "Her head almost exploded when I responded to her question about what I wanted to do for my ninth birthday."

"How so?" he asked, unable to contain the smile that bloomed in response to her.

"Told her I wanted to go to the shooting range. It was then she found out that Da had let me take lessons from the Security Chief on the boat he'd been assigned to. God, she was so mad." Shepard shook her head and smiled up at the artificial sky above them.

"So this must be like living the dream?" Kaidan observed, sitting near her but leaving an appropriate amount of distance between them after he gave it a moment of thought.

"It was," she said a little reservedly.

When he glanced over at her, the brightness in her eyes faded. "I figured all this would be right up your alley."

"Seems to be a common thought," she said darkly. The silence stretched for a few moments, and Kaidan was completely uncertain how to proceed or if he even should. But, thankfully Shepard spared him. "When I was a six, I announced to my family I'd be a marine. By twelve, I'd picked my specialty. At fourteen my father asked me what I wanted most. You know what I told him?" she asked, glancing to her right.

Kaidan shook his head. "What?"

"An N7 tab," she replied, unable to hold back the careful but proud smile. "I had it all laid out in my head. I got lucky in the end, with the timing, but I had a plan. Of course a year after I made my grand declaration, I thought it was all over."

"When you were detected?" he asked, recalling their earlier conversation. Her eyes shot to his, she seemed to be surprised that he remembered.

"Yeah." When she turned slightly on the bench, facing him more, Kaidan decided to do the same, laying his arm across the back of the bench. "I'd always been a freak-one of the outsiders. I mean, I literally, spent my life training for this."

"So, you're saying you're part turian?"

She laughed lightly and he beamed in response. "Something like that. On the ships, sometimes I was the only kid. People liked my Da, so they watched out for me, too. And I wanted to learn anything anyone would teach me-programming, marksmanship, even military history and philosophy. Hell, I learned hand-to-hand from an old chief with six daughters of his own after he saw a few of the boys picking on me."

Kaidan could not imagine it, it seemed lonely. The idea of being the only kid, even on a ship the size of the  _Normandy_ , seemed like it would have been daunting. In the changes in her tone of voice he could sense the joy and the struggle. There were definitely some things about her childhood that she seemed to savor, but it was also clear that it was just like anyone's upbringing and had its downs, too.

"Then that damned doctor." Nyx placed her hands on the bench, leaning on them, as she looked out at the lakes. "He was so nonchalant about the whole thing. 'Mr. and Mrs. Shepard, I'm sure you've already noticed' …" Shepard shook her head. "Then he told them that I was a prime candidate for amping and that it should be done as soon as possible for the best possible result. I didn't want it," she admitted, turning her head and meeting Kaidan's gaze again, her chin resting on her shoulder.

"Doc sold it hard though. Then my mother mentioned something about the service, and the guy knew he had his hook. Told us the Alliance wouldn't touch a candidate with biotic potential who wasn't amped."

"Son of a bitch," Kaidan muttered. He realized it had been out loud when the smile curled her lips.

"My thoughts exactly."

The doctor's claim was not entirely true. Kaidan had met a few people in the service that were exposed to Element Zero and developed biotic ability. Some of whom were either considered too old to amp by the time the potential was discovered, or they had simply managed to avoid the procedure. But it was nowhere near a requirement. Sadly, a lot of doctors still tried to make the amps look like the only viable option, despite the possible side effects still associated with the devices.

"Is that when your asari commando came into the picture?" the lieutenant asked.

"Not at first. I went through a bit of a bitch phase first," she said with a clipped laugh as she turned back to the water. "Figured my future was over. And even after I met Ceramae, I still thought everything I planned out couldn't possibly happen." She chewed at her bottom lip for a long time before she continued. "She basically told me biotics could be another tool. Guess she was as good a salesman as the doc. She got me to want to learn it."

"But you didn't buy into it all?"

Her sharp eyes were on him again. "No. I'd seen one or two of them in some of the teams that came through my dad's medbay. Biotics were outsiders, hell, still  _are_  outsiders-on the fringe. I'd spent my whole life there, and I wasn't looking to keep going along that path."

"In a way you were. You wanted things that were bound to put you on the cusp," Alenko observed. The look in her eyes was a mix of shock and understanding. He shifted slightly and leaned toward her. "You didn't just go looking for a combat specialty, you went special warfare. Not a lot of …," he halted for a moment before he voiced the sad but still too true statement. "Not a lot of women go out for that gig, even fewer make the cut. And your brass ring was N7. Come on, Shepard."

"Being on the outside because you worked your ass off is one thing. Being on the outside because people were afraid of you is wholly another." She shifted away from him slightly and her voice held a note of disdain for the idea.

"People are scared of you," he chided, his eyes moving along the tranquil surface of the lakes. "They'd be stupid not to be. That's why the Council chose you. Even if they didn't think humanity was ready, they could see you were. Your reputation precedes you. Strong, dedicated, capable-you get the job done. And I'll be honest there are times I've wondered how you achieve it myself." He shook his head at his hands. "There were people digging for dirt on Saren for years, like Garrus. You managed to find it and clip his wings in a matter of days."

"It's not talent when the chips fall on the table just as you get there," she muttered at the distance.

Alenko tipped his head. "Maybe not. But it takes something special to grab them up and run the table with them."

Shepard stood and walked over to the glass retaining wall a few feet away.

"I never thought about it before but it's got to be hell for you," Kaidan noted.

"What?" Shepard asked over her shoulder.

"All this," he replied, standing and gesturing at the calmness around them. "You had what you went out for-what you wanted."

"Yep," she said, as he joined her at the edge of the walkway and looked down into the water. "Then someone decided to throw my name in the proverbial hat. One I didn't even know existed. And here we all are-chasing a turian Spectre no one can find a stitch of information on. Making it all up on the fly."

"You're pretty good at it though." He chose not to look at her when he noticed her head turn out of the corner of his eye. Kaidan preferred not know if she was wavering again. He just wanted to enjoy the conversation while it lasted. "I've never been quite that adept at planning things out."

"Me either. If you haven't noticed, all my plans seem to go to hell."

"You nailed the big ones."

"True enough." She leaned on one arm and looked over at him. "So, how did you wind up here? Since I've been so forthcoming."

"This was always the plan, once Conatix stopped by for afternoon tea with my parents, at least."

"You didn't have big dreams about going space and discovering the unknown. Saving the galaxy from pirates and evil. And stuff." Shepard's eyes were bright; her tone was joyful and unhampered. Even the way she moved seemed more fluid than it had moments earlier, as if in that moment there was nothing weighing on her. It was nice to see.

Kaidan laughed light-heartedly. "I guess I read those stories and saw those vids. You know, man goes to space to prove himself worthy of the woman he loves. Or for justice. Or something," he replied nervously, trying to backpedal. "But I didn't know what I wanted. I was still figuring it all out. And after … after the procedure it didn't seem to matter much anymore. Things were kind of laid out for me. Gagarin Station-BAaT, which promised a commission after."

"So that's it? That's the whole story?"

When he glanced back at her, she was looking at Kaidan like she actually saw him. Her smile was relaxed; she seemed content. Some of the tension that always seemed to be present around her eyes and in her stance was less prominent than usual, or so his observation suggested. Alenko did not want to spoil that, and deep down he worried whether Shepard would be able to look at him the same way if she knew about his past. Everyone he knew looked at him differently once they found out what really happened to him on that station, what he had done. His attention returned to the water. If he were honest with himself, Kaidan would prefer Shepard not look at him the way everyone else did, like a section 8 waiting to happen. He knew he could not handle her pitying him.

"Mostly," Alenko concluded with a shrug after his moment of reflection.

"When you said you were a career man, I just sort of figured you came at it the way I did. Just that thing you always saw yourself doing."

"Hell, I figured growing up on ships, it was forced on you," he retorted, finally looking back over at her.

"Oh, not even. Mom and my Móraí, my grandmother, were dead set against it from the first time I said anything. Once they found out about the shooting lessons, I had to trade etiquette classes for range time."

"Seriously?" Kaidan laughed, leaning on the balustrade again. "Like which fork to use and place settings and things?"

"Yep. The whole nine," she disclosed with a laugh. He found it a little hard to believe, though it did make some things a little clearer, like the deliberate way she sat down earlier and the strict carriage. "Oh. I even have proof. Class ran late one day, this was during Da's leave and I think we were on Arcturus, though it could have been Exeter"-she shook her head as she tapped at her omnitool-"no matter."

His draw dropped, literally; he could hardly believe what he was seeing. Kaidan grabbed her hand, and pulled her closer to get a clear view of the image she had punched up-she must have been ten, maybe twelve, hair tied up like she wore it now, in a carefully crafted bun. It was accentuated by little pearl drop earrings, lace gloves, tights and short buckled heels, but the dress. The dress made the picture. It was a fluffy mountain of frills-all ruffles, lace, and bows. Then there was the Edge pistol she held in a two-handed grip. The weapon seemed massive in her hands and so out of place taken in light of everything else.

"My Da took it," she revealed with mirth in her voice.

When he looked down at her, those big blue eyes blinked back up at him. For a moment his brain muddled, she was pressed against him with one hand on his back, as his arm lay draped over hers; while her other hand was clasped tightly in his. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to close the few inches distance between them, to press his lips to hers, but the stark white letters of the N7 tab on her uniform slammed his brain back into gear.

Alenko cleared his throat as he untangled them and released her hand. She tapped the interface closed, her shoulders straightening. The lieutenant knew in that moment that the easy conversation between the man and the woman who happened upon one another on the Presidium was over; the officers' personae replaced the casual interaction with something more structured, even though the topic did not change right off.

"He said it was proof of my determination."

"I'll say," Kaidan agreed.

"When he sent my mom a copy, she flipped. Yelling about me getting gun oil on the dress or something else as inane," Shepard added.

Watching the stiffness and tension return to her movements, as they continued the walk that started earlier, Kaidan wanted nothing more than to stay locked in that limbic space with her, where they could just be two people, rather than two officers in the same chain of command. A part of his brain argued that she was a Spectre-it was an argument he had with himself before. He clipped it off before it started. Spectre or not, Shepard was Alliance first. He had seen signs of that more than enough times since the little impromptu ceremony in the Citadel Tower. She still introduced herself as Commander Shepard, only rarely did she mention her Spectre status. So Alenko resolved to just enjoy barest remnants of the moment while they lasted, which he presumed might continue until they reached the elevator that lead to C-Sec HQ and the  _Normandy's_  berth.


	13. Honing the Spear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard manages to get the team some time in the renowned combat simulator housed on Pinnacle Station, while some things go according to plan. An unexpected confrontation puts the team on edge, and rightly so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Chyrstis and LadyAmesIndy for their time and input

**13 Honing the Spear**

**i.**

"Pinnacle Station scheduling. Can I get your unit designator, name, and rank please?"

_Well, hell, there is no official unit designator for this squad,_ she realized suddenly. Before recruiting the aliens it had been Marine Detail SR-1. Now they were something altogether different. "Sure thing. This is Lieutenant Commander Shepard of the  _SSV Normandy_. Need to see if you can accommodate my ground team."

The silence was uncomfortably long.

"Hello?" she asked once, then twice. Then she tapped her pilot's shoulder with the back of her hand. "Did the connection drop or something?"

"Nope. He's probably just in shock. Or unconscious on the floor," Joker replied quietly to avoid the comment crossing the comm channel.

"Not funny," she mouthed back.

"Fifty credits says I'm right."

"Y… Yes, ma'am. W-we can clear the board for you, i-if you like?" the station communication's operator finally replied in a voice that sounded almost scared.

"Told ya," Joker crooned lowly.

"No need for that," she said to both men, swatting Joker a second time. "I just need time to run a handful of evals, maybe some sims."

"Certainly, Commander… Spectre Shepard. When will you be arriving?"

"One sec," she told the operator. "Joker, ETA?"

"Sixteen hours, give or take," the pilot replied off the top of his head, straightening his cap.

"In about a day," Shepard stated, rounding up.

"Yes, ma'am. I'll let the admiral know you're on your way."

"No need for anything special. Just need to get my guys into some decent stress-filled combat scenarios."

"Indeed, ma'am. Pinnacle Station, out."

For the eight months prior to her reassignment to the  _Normandy_ , Shepard had been trying to get her old team some face time with the renowned simulator housed at Pinnacle Station, but the timing always fell through. It was not easy to get on their schedule in the first place, but every time she managed to get A7 a slot something interfered. The immediate response from the scheduling officer left the commander more than a little surprised. She was at least expecting to be told they would have to kill a few days before they could grab some time.

"Look at you, scaring all the yeoman with the mere mention of your name," her pilot chided, grinning up at her from under the brim of his cap.

Nyx tried and failed not to smile, so she tapped the bill lightly putting his ever-present hat offkilter. "And I seem to remember you mentioning that you didn't need your legs to fly," Shepard noted as she turned toward the Combat Information Center.

"What'd Joker do this time?" Alenko queried as he approached her.

"What does Joker always do?" she replied over her shoulder then spotted the datapad in his hand. "That for me?"

"Yep. Eyes only from Anderson."

"Thanks, L-T," she said, tapping him on the shoulder with the item as she passed him and made her way to the CIC and then to the crew deck. Once in her quarters she accessed the device and skimmed the message as a scowl shifted across her features. With a heavy sigh she dropped it on her desk and fell face first onto the bed. The lack of direction on Saren was driving her bonkers.

After laying there for a few minutes, letting her mind mull over the possibilities remaining, Shepard flipped over, grabbed the device, and drafted a quick reply.  _Send me the files. I'll put Tali'Zorah and Alenko on it, see if we can't get somewhere with Saren's data ourselves. ~NRS_. She knew Anderson would send it, even if he had to rattle chains to do it. She was less certain about what her crew or anyone else could really do with it if the Alliance's best keyboard jockeys had gotten nowhere, but at this point anything was worth a shot.

**ii.**

Pinnacle Station was one of the most advanced warfare simulators in the galaxy-yet another combined Council effort-and running the day-to-day operations had somehow fallen to the Alliance. Admiral Tadeus Ahern was the commanding officer. The man was a legend in Special Operations mainly for his service during the First Contact War, those few months had made the careers of several dedicated combat operators.

When the  _Normandy_ arrived he had been in meetings with the liaisons from the different Council forces, so Shepard and her crew were able to get straight into it. They ran five sims that first day. For Shepard it was something akin to a homecoming, though an effecting one. Alenko and Williams had each run two missions, while everyone else ran one, but Shepard had been part of all five. It was one of the perks of command, though few in her position would have considered back-to-back evaluative exercises in those terms.

The resulting state of exhaustion also felt like a plus for the Spectre, at least when she first climbed back onto the ship. Shepard languished in a hot shower later before collapsing onto her rack with the hopes that she might actually pass out. But the possibility of full night's sleep had been short lived.

Shepard's career was noteworthy to those that studied it. To the people who experienced some of the situations, it read more like an exercise in terror. She remembered the Blitz in too much detail-the retaliations and the pirate raids in various sectors. Those memories specifically woke her that night. The ghosts of two families slaughtered in a basement. A serviceman who had gotten his face scraped off by a batarian looking for children he could make a profit on. The triumphant yells of an injured, green-gilled marine that blew himself up to take a recon squad with him. These were some of the things that haunted her when the beacon from Eden Prime relented.

Scrubbing her hands over her face, Nyx tried to get the image of that faceless man out of her head. Usually remembering the OCS graduation of his daughter did the trick. But that night, not even the memory of the girl that survived could get Specialist Paul Baird out of her head. Glancing at her wrist she realized she somehow managed to steal five hours from the nightmares and the beacon's images; that was a rare record. She pulled on a pair of black socks with red and orange flames engulfing the foot and running up the calf. Then Nyx slid into a pair of track pants.

Fairly certain she might go unnoticed-even on a ship, 4 a.m. was still a bit of an ungodly hour-she padded into the common room of the crew deck. The officer stopped cold when Ashley raised an eyebrow at her.

"What in the name of all that is unholy are you doing up?" the chief asked with way too much flair for that time of day.

"I could ask you the same question, Chief," Shepard noted, continuing her jaunt across the room. Crouching, she grabbed two containers of apple juice out of the fridge and returned to the table, shaking them.

Ashley caught the peace offering the officer tossed at her.

"What you got there?" Shepard asked, falling into a chair across from her.

"Vids from this afternoon." When Shepard cocked an eyebrow up at her, Williams continued. "I have an unnatural desire to make that turian eat his words. Since making him eat my fist might cause a galactic incident," the chief muttered the last bit at the interface of her omnitool.

Shepard choked, trying not to spit a mouthful of juice all over the other woman. "Glad to see you found a hobby."

"That smug bastard. I hate guys like that."

The comment made Shepard smile, for a moment a thread of concern had woven its way into the commander's mind. She really preferred not to have that conversation with the chief again. And it seemed an unnecessary concern.

"A human couldn't best my performance," Williams mocked in a silly voice. "Yeah, well. We'll show him, won't we, Skipper?"

Shepard shrugged noncommittally. "Not really the point is it, Williams?"

"Bullshit," the chief shot. Then she straightened in her seat. "Ma'am."

They traded a silent look. Shepard, personally, had no issues with the chief's freeness of speech. It was how things usually happened in the field, but they both knew that on the decks of the ship the commander's opinion of it was not the only one that would come into play.

Ashley leaned forward on the table. "Forgive me. But that's precisely the point. He took his little team in there. And you'll take yours. Us beating him is kind of like the bar to meet," she said carefully. "He's pretty good, but not as good as he thinks he is. If we can get everyone in sync, we can break him and his piddling records. Make him cry in his gun locker."

"But to do it we have to gel?" Shepard asked.

"Yeah, that's going to be the key. That and taking the right make up for the situation and the terrain."

"If you come up with a breakthrough, you let me know. We'll see if we can't add taking Vidinos down a peg to the agenda."

"Hell yeah," Ashley replied with a grin.

**iii.**

A few minutes later Ashley tapped the interface away and leaned back toward the commander, sipping at the juice Shepard had tossed her. "Hey, Skipper, can I ask you something?"

The commander eyed her for a moment. "You can always ask."

Williams smirked at the implication that she could ask anything, but she just might not get an answer. "What was it like?"

"What was what like, Chief?" the officer took a long pull on the collapsible container.

"Growing up on ships?"

Shepard shrugged with a laugh. "Kind of like this, except I didn't get saluted back then, and they would have frowned on me spending as much time on the bridge as I do now," she quipped.

"Seriously, Shepard," Ashley pleaded.

"It really wasn't that much different. Substitute combat with mandatory 'class' time in the system labs. Reports-homework. Maybe hanging out with my friends, if any were on the boat. Or just hiding out. Even on the big hospital ships, there's not that much in the way of kid-friendly entertainment."

"Man, that sounds rough."

Shepard grimaced and tilted her head slightly. "I don't know. Some parts of it sucked. But I got shooting lessons from a security specialist with a sniper tab. So it evens out, I think."

Williams nodded in agreement, though it still seemed a little out of her grasp. She remembered running around and playing in the dirt with her sisters. Some nights when her Dad was home they would sit in the backyard toasting marshmallows while her dad read poetry to them. She smiled as she recalled spring afternoons spent with her sisters, laying back in the grass and watching the clouds, talking and making up stories. Ashley loved being outside, the idea of spending her whole life cooped up on a ship seemed so foreign to everything she knew. Hell, even after years in the service, she struggled to switch gears to ship-bound from spending most of her career groundside.

"There were other kids on the ships?" Ashley asked the container in her hands.

"Sometimes. Not always." The commander toyed with a lid, spinning it in her fingers. "My friends and I were kind of the outcasts. Lin and I, because we were girls. Caz because he was thin as a rail and way too into tech. Guy could hack anything with a circuit. We'd make hideouts in the cargo bay-perches. We could observe without being seen, usually."

"Sounds familiar," Tali noted as she approached. "Like my cousin, some friends, and I. We were on the fringe too. The other kids always looked at us differently, so we kind of gravitated toward one another. Kept an eye out for each other."

"Exactly," Shepard agreed. "I'm sure you and your sisters had a similar relationship. One of those unbreakable bonds people just can't get between, you know?"

"Yeah. So, you all are all still close?" Williams asked, looking from the officer to the quarian.

"Most of us were still on the same ship before I left on my Pilgrimage. Kal had finished his a few years ago and Meela just got back," Tali noted with a trace of what sounded like homesickness. "But we all keep in contact as best we can. What about you and your friends, Shepard?"

"Oh we're a strange bunch. Lin and I enlisted together, she's a nurse now. Married my old command chief, actually. And Caz…" Shepard glanced at her fingers, with pursed lips, seeming to struggle a bit. "We don't talk as much as we did when we were kids, but he's my best friend. Keeper of the Skeleton Closet, so to speak."

"What are you talking about Shepard?" Tali asked shaking her head.

"Old human saying about people having ugly secrets they prefer to keep hidden from prying eyes-skeletons in their closet."

"That's just morbid," the quarian noted.

"Yeah it kind of is when you think about it," Ashley agreed.

Shepard nodded. "It just means he knows everything about me, even the things I'd prefer people not to know, I guess."

"That I can understand," the quarian noted as she leaned forward. "Ashley, how many sisters do you have?"

"Three."

"Three sisters?" There was a sense of whimsy in Tali's voice, that Williams could not recall having heard before. "It must have been amazing. People so close to you, a part of you like that."

"Sisters are not all they are cracked up to be," Kaidan injected from across the room.

"Amen, L-T," Ashley laughed. "Older or younger?"

"Both, and an older brother."

"Ouch. My condolences."

"Do all humans have such big families?" Tali queried.

Shepard shook her head. "Nope. Only child."

"Quarians don't have big families?" Ashley asked.

"No. Each family has one child, unless the population gets low. With the limited space of the Flotilla, population growth from unregulated breeding could be very damaging. It takes great skill to maintain steady population levels."

"I'd read that quarians typically only had one child, but I didn't realize it was mandated," Kaidan mused as he crossed the room.

"You thought it biological?" she asked with a note of something akin to irritation in her voice.

Alenko sat across from her and looked at her closely, like he was trying to dispel any unintended offense. "The articles only mentioned the phenomenon not the impetus for it. I mistakenly assumed that it might be some kind of side effect from the immune deficiencies or the lifetime spent in your suits. I apologize if I offended you."

Tali leaned back sharply. "I was not offended, just surprised that you of all people didn't know."

"Well, he does have Galactipedia as his extranet homepage," Ashley chided, punching him in the shoulder as he lifted his cup. The coffee sloshed onto the table.

He and Shepard both grasped for napkins from the dispenser in the middle of the table to sop it up. The trace of a nervous glance between them tempted the chief to smile. After Alenko's slip on the Citadel and the commander's accommodating reaction to it, Williams could not help but wonder about the two of them.

Kaidan shook his head. "Their articles on quarians are surprisingly inaccurate," he replied. "As is a great deal I've found about the your people from other sources."

"After the geth, a lot the galaxy kind of wanted to forget about us. Sometimes, I'm not sure that I can blame them. But then other times it seems like punishment for getting somewhere first. My people are reviled, looked at as vagabonds, all because of something that happened centuries ago. We lost our home world, you would think that would be punishment enough, but instead you walk through the Citadel and people who don't know you look away from you, give you a wide berth, or even spit at you."

"Closed minded idiots come in all shades, Tali," Shepard noted, tapping the quarian's knee with her own.

"Indeed," Ashley added with a glance at the datapad on the table. "I'll keep you posted on the plan C-O, but I think I'm gonna grab a little rack time before we start up for the day."

**iv.**

Kaidan furrowed his brow at Shepard. When the chief rounded the corner, he asked, "What's she talking about?"

"She wants to drop Vidinos a peg or two."

"I could get on board for that," Tali said, leaning forward on her elbows.

The lieutenant nodded his agreement.

Shepard laughed and shook her head. "I didn't realize he'd managed to rile everyone."

"Folks like him tend to," Kaidan said.

"True," Shepard agreed as she finished off her juice. "In the next day or two, I'm going to have a project for the two of you."

"Sounds intriguing," Tali responded, watching the commander cross to the waste receptacle.

"Command isn't having much luck with Saren's encryption. So, I'm going to let you two take a go at it. Figure we might as well use every possible resource."

Kaidan chuckled lightly when he noticed the quarian's hands weave together as if she were a maniacal evil villain in a comic or an over-the-top movie. "Sounds like fun," Alenko said.

Shepard shook her head. "Once I have the files I'll open them up to the two of you. I'd like to keep access limited, if you catch my meaning?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The two of them watched Shepard leave. Then Tali inched toward him, leaning on the table. "I'm surprised they are letting her have the data."

"It's Council intel. Try as they might the Alliance has no jurisdiction over that information." Alenko's gaze focused on his coffee cup.

"Any ideas how we might go at the data?" Tali asked, the slightest note of distraction tempered her voice suggesting there were already ideas galloping through her head.

Kaidan lifted a shoulder and tipped his head back and forth slightly. "I don't really know anything about the information or the formatting, let alone the encryption. Without having seen it, I really can't speculate how we might crack it. I know there are some pretty heavy hitters in the Alliance when it comes cryptology. But I think anything we come up with is moot until we see it."

"Agreed," Tali noted, her hands moving flatly against one another.

**v.**

The next afternoon Shepard switched things up, though Pinnacle Station's Tech Specialist, Ochren, did not seem to appreciate her initiative. The part of her crew not in the simulation at the time milled around the load out area, while the commander stood right behind Ochren's chair watching the multiple monitors from over the salarian's shoulder. Every once and a while she would offer suggestions and ask questions. Most of his responses were mainly comprised of irritated sighs.

"Commander, you  _can_  see all these feeds from the briefing area," Ochren grumbled.

"I'm good," she replied.

"I think that was his polite way of asking you to stop hovering, Shepard," Garrus observed from her left.

Her eyes flitted to him for a moment, then back to the monitors. "I'm not completely oblivious, Vakarian."

Garrus chuckled.

"The problem with that suggestion is that from back there I cannot intervene." Nyx leaned forward. "Flank them with five on the left and four on the right."

"You're pushing them pretty hard," the turian noted.

Unlike her, he watched the exercises from the analyst's suggested location. This particular simulation was closing in on forty minutes of pretty thick combat, at least in his opinion; even more so when he considered who was in the sim. It started simply enough. But Shepard held to motto that simple never is. The team was sent in to recover a target, in this case a data cache, then move to and secure an extraction point. Now she had the trio awaiting a delayed extraction-in a fairly open area, with little cover and several ingress and egress points.

"Yep." Her tone was flat as her eyes focused on the screen, seemingly studying the team currently firing from some awkward cover.

Garrus observed that trio were being quite smart about the encounter. The team kept moving, not allowing the enemy to box them in to one position. It was a smart move. "You think Tali and Liara can take it?"

"If I didn't, they wouldn't be in there," Shepard stated, turning her gaze on him. Her eyes quickly darted to a monitor and she tapped the top of Ochren's chair. "Don't let them regroup. Keep the pressure up."

Garrus looked at her. She was pushing the tech and biotics experts hard. From the information the turian accessed on his squad mates, only the lieutenant really had any notable combat experience. The commander calmly continued her directions to the salarian. As the turian glanced up at the monitors, he could see the fatigue in Liara's face. With Tali it was more noticeable in the way she let her shotgun hang loosely between her legs as she crouched to trade out a heat sink. Vakarian felt badly for them, all of them.

A slight hum tickled his throat when he watched the lieutenant. Alenko seemed to be taking it in stride, which the turian chalked up to training and combat experience. Watching this display also worried the former C-Sec officer. He, Wrex, and Ashley were still waiting for their chance at this unique brand of  _torture a la Shepard_. And, while he had been excited for the chance to showcase his own skill, what he saw the Alliance officer throw at some of the least experienced members of the team worried him. There was no doubt in his mind that the commander had more than enough tricks to make him-hell-all of them sweat it.

"You don't think-" Garrus did not even get the whole thought out before those sharp eyes focused on him again.

"Keep them bogged down. If you can, try and block up that egress point to the north, force them east and ambush them," Shepard ordered, with a hand on the salarian's shoulder. Then she walked toward Garrus, guiding him out of earshot and towards the simulator's north entrance. "Officer Vakarian, do not take this the wrong way. But I would appreciate it if you would refrain from second guessing my training operations and my tactics, at least until briefing. At which point you can bring it forth to the team or you and I can have the tete-a-tete in private, if you prefer."

"I just know that Tali and Li-"

"I am wholly aware of the lack of both combat training and experience of these people. As I am also aware of precisely where you received your sniper training. Just as I know some of the jobs that have been attributed to Wrex. Do you not think I consider all these things before I put someone into a scenario? Do you think that someone with several years experience training and commanding a team of operators might not have some idea quite how far she can push people? And do you think I'm only standing behind that irritable salarian only to throw more shit at them than they can handle?"

She paused a moment, looking him square in the eye before her eyebrows rose, reinforcing each question in his mind. It felt like that moment in Dr. Michel's clinic all over. She might have been looking up at him physically, but psychologically he felt about two feet tall. Garrus knew she did not want an answer. It was like training, when his instructors would get mandible to mandible with him and whisper taunts or ask questions that were merely designed to remind him who he was dealing with.

When he nodded at her, Shepard took a step back. "So I take it you're a little concerned about your own scenario?"

"Not so much at first, but now, yes," he replied as she took a more relaxed stance.

"You should be. But yours will be a slightly different brand of pressure and I suggest you go give your sniper rifle the once over. And leave me to my task."

Ochren groaned at her when she returned to her spot just behind his right shoulder, but Garrus took the hint. He removed to the load out area and lost himself in the ritual. His worry made him slow and careful, more precise than usual-and he was always meticulous. Vakarian was not going to allow some preventable failure with equipment to be a reason he could not hack whatever she was going to throw at him. As he twisted the barrel in place, his head snapped to the left when a hand tapped his shoulder.

Ashley looked up at him. She seemed swathed in an air of stoic calm. "We're up."

"What are we doing?"

"Dunno. But she said big guns only."

Garrus noted that Ashley was carrying her own Reaper, and only the sniper rifle, not even a side arm.

Shepard was giving T'Soni, Tali'Zorah, and Alenko the once over. He knew the full briefings would come later but even if moments earlier she was designing their virtual demise, her concern for their current state was thorough and complete.

"Lieutenant, I want the three of you to see Chakwas. Get the all clear. Then grab some rest. I'm going to have you back on the floor in about five hours, give or take," Shepard stated, pointing at the sentinel as she crossed to the two snipers.

"All of us?" Liara asked with a weak voice that belied her weariness.

"No, you and Tali get a reprieve. I'm taking Williams and Alenko on walkabout later, after playtime is over."

"Playtime," Williams muttered with a shake of her head. "She sounds like Chief Ellison."

"That's an unexpected compliment, Chief," Nyx noted with a telltale wink. "If that is how it was meant."

The other human smirked, shrugging one shoulder in reply. Garrus did not have the luxury of the reference, but if he had to guess it might not bode well for the two of them. The turian was still highly uncertain what to expect out of this encounter. His lack of familiarity with human training methods left him woefully underprepared to speculate about the commander's planning.

"I'm sure you can both guess what this is."

"Last man standing?" Williams asked.

"Not quite," Shepard replied. She looked upward as she set her hands on her hips. "Think of it like a really screwed up race."

The quick footfalls drew their attention to man running up the deck. Chief McMillan nodded at the two snipers then handed an assault rifle and a scoped pistol over to the commander.

"Anything else, ma'am?"

"Not a thing, Chief. This should work. Appreciate the hustle."

"Sure thing, Commander," he replied with a quick salute that the Alliance personnel all returned.

"What are we racing toward?" Garrus asked as the man left.

"The big kill." Her eyes rose from the pistol and locked with each of theirs in turn.

"Wait?" Ashley asked with a widening grin. "We get to kill you?"

"No. You get to try."

"Oh hell yes!" The chief slapped the turian on the shoulder. "Bragging rights for eternity!"

The laughter was infectious. Garrus had to admit that being the sniper to put a round in a Spectre even if it was in training would be a coup. Then the little voice in the back of his head spoke up.  _If you can pull it off and kill her before she kills you_. When her bright blue eyes met his, it was as if she read his mind. Shepard's lips curled ever so devilishly and he suddenly realized he was as much a target as she was.

"Oh, and we aren't playing alone. Open hostiles, actively looking for snipers and a lone infiltrator. So you'll have to watch your own six or each other's for more than me," the commander advised as she led them into the empty space.

A few taps at the console revealed a multi-level environment. It was not the best place for long shots, though there were three good perches with seemingly decent lines. Without a doubt this terrain, would favor Shepard, but if they set up right, they might be able to get her.

"All right then. This thing starts in two minutes. Find a perch, make a plan, whatever strikes your fancy. Kill ya soon," the lithe blonde noted with a disconcerting wave before she skipped down the stairs.

Garrus looked over at Ashley. "The lines suck. We can try for a cross cover or pair up. What do you think?"

**vi.**

Wrex was leaning near the console when they exited. The slow clapping made Shepard's shoulders tighten. But when Garrus and Ashley both laughed, the krogan stopped his mocking applause. They realized that Nyx had given them the chance to succeed, but they split up, which left them vulnerable to the motives of an experienced operator. And the limitation on weaponry had been specifically designed to remind them of something they learned years earlier. Snipers shoot alone, but on a battlefield, spotters do more than help you sight and hone a shot.

"And what do you have in store for me?" the large alien asked as Shepard approached.

She clapped his shoulder and turned him toward the stairs. "Well, in two hours, you're going to defend a highly fortified position, with our turian associate here, against an Alliance-trained strike team."

Ashley's response showed her excitement. "Oh, yeah! This is going to be almost as much fun as taking shots at the C-O," the chief crooned, patting the commander on the tops of her shoulders.

Shepard just laughed at the response.  _You'd think I just told her I was buying her a pony_. "All right. All right, Chief," the blonde replied as Williams calmed slightly. She was merely shaking the officer by the shoulders a bit now.

Wrex's face split into a grin. "What's the terrain like?"

"Don't know." The commander crossed her arms and looked up at him.

She knew she had to look ridiculous standing there staring up at a krogan that was easily ten times her weight and had a few feet on her.

"Come again," he replied, eyes narrowing.

"I gave Ochren, objectives and certain parameters. Heavily fortified position, with automated defenses, and multiple ingress and egress points. Fairly open terrain on one approach, though uneven ground was a must. Everything else is up for grabs. Locale, layout, specific objectives each team must meet. The only one who has all the details is the salarian."

"Oh really?" he asked with an ominous rumble in his throat.

"Give it a rest, Wrex," Garrus said, laughing a little.

The remainder of the  _Normandy_  crew returned to the ship with plans to recuperate for a few hours before Shepard kicked them back in the proverbial pool to sink or swim.

The training schedule for the next day had been approved while the snipers were trying to kill the Spectre. After a quick glance at it, they all seemed to walk a little heavier when they realized everyone would be cycling through the simulator multiple times. Williams was thrilled about it, because she was hoping that the  _Normandy_ 's squad might be able to put down that rabid ego-centric turian, and she figured if they could do it all in one day, that might just give the diverse team that much more clout, and that much more cohesion.

**vii.**

The briefing the next morning covered the rotation. The seven of them were basically going to be running a rolling rotation through the simulation with Shepard. Alenko learned that she was pairing people up for specific types of missions for maximum result, accidentally, after overhearing a conversation between she and Pressly when he arrived early for the briefing. The commander seemed fairly certain that she had a decent grip on each of member's strengths and weaknesses and set out to balance them as effectively as possible.

"I still can't believe you shot me, Wrex," Ashley groaned at the male when the two stepped out of the airlock.

His laugh rumbled in his chest. "And I can't believe I didn't shoot you before you got that grenade off."

The two had managed to kill one another early on in the exercise the previous afternoon. It was quite the coup. Then Shepard and Alenko had been left to tackle the turian and his defense systems, which had proven more of a challenge than she first thought they might be.

That exercise had not gone quite the way she expected. Shepard told them all in the briefing a standoff could be a viable outcome of that training event, which they got in the end, but as it happened it wound up being a battle over control of the tech rather than a more traditional standoff. At one point Shepard merely occupied her time, killing off the random patrols spawned by the simulation, while Alenko and Vakarian hacked and back-hacked one another and the defenses.

The planned marathon, however, was going to put them all through the ringer. By the halfway point, the fatigue of the last few days of exercises was beginning to show on all of them. Williams and Alenko were used to a tough pace; both of them had been actively training like this prior to deployment with the  _Normandy_ , though their training had not been quite so stringent. The others had not worked at such a pace ever or at least not in quite some time. Despite this, Shepard's teams had already overtaken Vidinos' place at the top on each mission they had run.

Trying to catch his breath and steal a little calm, Kaidan leaned his head back against the cool metal bulkhead in the hallway, it was darker and the cheers and laughter were a little more muffled there than in the packed load out room.

"Excuse me," a calm deep voice inquired.

The lieutenant straightened and looked up at the wiry man who had a few inches on Alenko.

"You're one of Shepard's boys, right?"

The lieutenant's inspection of the man was as thorough as it could be in the moment he was allowed. "Yes," he answered cautiously.

"Relax, man."

The stranger clapped him on the shoulder rather familiarly, too much so. The officer glanced at the man's hand then back up at his face.

"Sorry, cuz," the stranger said with a laugh. "Listen when's her little show supposed to be over?"

"Who are you?" Despite the fact none of them were carrying live rounds, something about this encounter and the man brought Kaidan's hand instinctually to his sidearm. He carefully freed the catch that kept it secured on his hip. "And what makes you think I'd give you that information?"

With a nod, the man smiled and winked at the lieutenant. "Good man. Probably better this way anyhow. I'll find her myself."

"Hey, wait a minute."

The officer pulled his pistol as he took a step toward the retreating man. A wave over the shoulder of the departing civilian was all the response Kaidan got. He gave chase and grabbed one of the security officers, informing the armored salarian about the short exchange. But once the man turned toward the docks, he was gone. There was no sign of him on anyone's video surveillance-the station's or that of any of the ships docked on that collar. Even going backwards, Alenko and the security personnel could not determine how the odd man had gotten on the station in the first place. It was unnerving.

Kaidan was still leaning over a security terminal when Tali approached him. "We're up, Lieutenant."

"Yeah, just a sec," he replied. "Check the footage in infrared and the UV spectrum. See if we can get an idea where he went. Have it for me when I get back."

"Yes, sir," the young specialist agreed.

"What's going on?" Tali asked as the two walked back toward the simulation.

"Not sure," he replied.

Shepard leaned against a locker downing a canteen of water. She finally seemed to be showing some fatigue. Kaidan tucked his hand in the pocket on his thigh. He pulled out the rather horrible prize and tossed it at her.

"Not sure if I should thank you or beat you to death with this, Lieutenant," the commander replied with a slight smile.

Kaidan just tipped his head. He understood the sentiment all too well.

"What kept you?"

"Just trying to locate a ghost," he said lightly.

The crinkling of the wrapper stopped suddenly and when he glanced up she was staring at him. "What kind of ghost?"

Kaidan did not answer immediately, her response struck him as unexpected and just a little more than odd given the circumstances.

"Come on, L-T. Animal, vegetable, or mineral?" the commander prodded with an emphatic gesture.

"Human. Civilian. Asking questions about you and when your exercises were over."

"Show me," she ordered, crossing the space quickly.

Her hand was firm between his shoulder blades as she all but pushed him down the corridor. The entire squad followed them to the security station. The young tech Alenko had been working with looked surprised and a little more than intimidated when the septet invaded his station.

"I hear you have some very nice footage of a poltergeist," Shepard said to the kid. All he could manage in response was a nod as his eyes travelled the mix of faces, all holding some measure of a scowl.

"The cameras only caught him as he neared the security checkpoint, and at first the target was careful to keep himself facing precisely to avoid the cameras," the specialist narrated as the video played. "He was very good."

On the video the tall, lanky gentleman approached Alenko. The two shared a brief exchange then the man walks off.

"Then he screws up," the tech stated triumphantly.

When the man retreated up the hall, he kept his face relatively out of view until he looked straight into the camera, offered an impish grin, and winked.

"Son of a bitch," Shepard muttered, annunciating each syllable with a shake of her head. She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, loosely. "You can tell your boys to stop looking, kid. You're not going to find him unless he wants you to."

Nyx's laughter was light as she pushed back through the crowd of her own people. "Let's get back to work people."

"You know who that was?" Kaidan inquired, hot on her heels.

"Remember that message I sent while we were on the Citadel, looking for information on Saren ?"

"Kind of. Sure."

"That's the answer."

"That guy is your big contact."

"More wiry than big," she said with a slight tilt of her head.

Kaidan stopped when she did. "He was acting very suspicious."

"Of course, he was. He was playing with you."

"What?"

"That's what Caz does. That's what all spies do. Ingratiate, infiltrate, eliminate. Or whatever their motto is this week." Her eyes narrowed on Kaidan for a moment. "What did you tell him?"

"Nothing."

Shepard nodded. "That explains the smile then. Good job."

The squad's training stint continued as if nothing happened, though Alenko tried to push the impromptu meeting and the commander's reaction to it out if his head, it was not that easy. Thankfully, he managed to get through his last appearance in the simulation before the questions got too distracting. As the team finished up, Tali ducked her head into the security station and let him know they were leaving.

**viii.**

Shepard appreciated different takes and opinions as long as presented in the right manner at the right time. Alenko possessed a great deal of tact and chose his timing wisely. While disarming in the bay, the lieutenant approached the commander about his concern over an operative trying to make contact with her in such an unusual manner.

"I'll let you in on a little background. Calev Zingel is a well-respected operative of the Alliance Intelligence Services. I've known the guy my entire life, well, enough of it to round up. Odd is his specialty. He is highly skilled, extremely effective, and, if he is on this station to see me, then he's going to find me. It's what he does. And he does it better than most," Shepard explained to the group, hoping it might ease some of the tension, but knowing it likely would not calm anyone's anxiety. Of course if she were unlucky, it might just put them more on edge.

"Why would he run off when pressed by the lieutenant?" Liara asked.

Shepard shrugged. "Maybe because he read the suspicion. Maybe because he thought it would be hilarious to have the security team looking for him." The commander stopped and thought about it for a moment. "Yeah. Probably the second one actually."

When she suddenly smiled and laughed, they all stared at her.

"What's so funny?" Wrex grumbled obviously displeased with the entire situation.

The commander took a moment to try and determine the best way to disclose what just popped into her head. She crossed her arms and knew by the looks she was getting that there probably was no good way. "Has security swept the ship?"

Eyes widened and her squad exchanged looks with one another as well as her.

"Because, if I were Caz. I would make a scene. Get everyone looking in the wrong place-namely the docking collar where my target is not berthed. Then I'd just go right for the gold, while everyone was distracted."

The clapping took everyone off guard and more than a handful of pistols and other weapons were trained toward the door to engineering. Pressly flinched when the squad drew down on the man beside him.

"Lower your weapons, you'll traumatize my X-O," Shepard ordered nonchalantly, stepping past her people. Wrex seemed less than thrilled with the idea of her order, so she laid her hand atop his shotgun and redirected the barrel to the floor. The commander did note that none of her team actually put away their weapons and Corporal Niveda, who had been escorting the pair had her hand on her sidearm in hand as well. "Mr. Pressly, would you care to make the introductions?"

"Lieutenant Commander Zingel, here, arrived a few hours ago, with documentation from Fifth Fleet Command, which slated him as approved to meet with you, Commander, on official orders," the navigator explained obviously concerned about what might be going on.

Shepard cast a glance over her shoulder at her crew.

Caz took a few steps forward and snapped off a sharp salute. It had been more years than she could remember since she saw her old friend in uniform. It almost seemed out of place on him. "I have orders from Admiral Hackett, your eyes only, ma'am."

With a nod, she told Pressly to take him to her quarters and not leave him alone there. Once the door to the lift closed, the commander turned and set her hands on her hips. "Alenko, I want you and Tali to get that data off the ship's computers, now." Before he walked away she set her hand square in the center of his chest. "Tell me you pulled a hard copy of Saren's data when it was transmitted?"

"Of course." Alenko offered her a look that suggested he was offended that she even asked.

"Check it. Make sure it has not been tampered with, changed out, what have you."

"Suddenly worried about your friend, Shepard?" Garrus asked.

"No. But you'll learn soon enough I don't like to take chances, even if it's a sure thing."

Shepard turned on her heels and made her way to the crew deck. She rubbed her forehead as the elevator rose slowly. Steven Hackett's penchant for using intelligence officers to communicate with her was going to get really old really fast, she thought as she walked onto the deck. Taking a moment to prepare herself for the possible game she might be about to walk into, the commanding officer of the  _Normandy_  stopped and prepared two cups of coffee.

The show downstairs could have been for the benefit of the other people involved in the exchange or it could have been Caz's way of signaling to her that everything about this visit was part of a job. If it was the former she could relax. If it was the latter she was going to have to play an ugly game of cat, mouse, and wolf, with the person that knew her best. The second possibility was not something she was looking forward to.

Gathering up the mugs she crossed the sparsely populated crew deck and entered her quarters. Pressly nodded as she entered, but dismissed himself in response to the subtle suggestive gesture of her head. Nyx set a mug in front of her friend then sat across from him, taking a moment to study the man she had not laid eyes on in years. The two of them waited there in silence. As the quiet lingered, Shepard was certain this was going to be the trial she really did not want to have to battle through.

"So, Commander, you have orders from Hackett?" Shepard crossed her legs and ran one hand over a wrinkle that formed near her knee.

Zingel eyed her for a long moment. "You look good Nyx. Tired, and a little stressed, but mostly human, which was always a stretch for you."

_God, I hope he's just playing with me_. "Thanks. You look pretty good yourself. Surprised the uniform still fits."

"Me, too. Guess staying busy helped me keep my flattering physique."

Shepard smiled into her mug. "Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that."

"Oh, ouch. And this from my oldest friend. I must be losing my touch."

"I'd say your touch is fine, Commander. You set off the entire security force of a secure training station. Somehow managed to produce orders to be aboard my vessel. Then riled my squad to boot. All just to tell me I look like hell."

He scowled slightly as he leaned forward, laying his forearms over the table as he clasped his hands. "Could be. Does it really seem all that out of reach for me?"

"Caz, come on. If there is one thing you and I do not have time for it is games, especially now."

One shoulder lifted slightly, and the disinterested expression remained.

"Fine," Shepard replied, standing. "You want to play games, we can play games." In two steps her hand was on the intercom. "Moreau, send me two MPs and have Vakarian and Wrex accompany them."

"Fuck, Nyxy," Caz relented, holding up his hands as he spun out of the chair.

Tapping the intercom again, she called off the dogs then crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall-waiting.

"You called me. Remember?" he said finally. "I was just out and about, doing what I do. Then I get this ping from the past, asking me to dig into some next level shit. I mean seriously, Shepard, what the hell? I leave you alone for five minutes and you're tied to one dead turian Spectre, another defrocked one with a damn geth army. Then you go and let the Council drape you in colors. Someone must have it in for you."

Nyx stretched her neck, the popping sound was not really a relief, though it did announce her growing ease. This was all Caz, this was not the operative, which allowed her to let her guard down a touch. "You know the drill better than me. You take a job, or get given one, and you ride it out. The call was made. And this time my name got picked."

Her childhood friend shook his head at her. "Look at the two of us. Middle of our careers and our lives get hijacked again."

"Again? Speak for yourself," she scoffed. "This is my first deviation."

"Oh, because you planned on spending a year in the desert with me."

He grinned at her and she could not help but return it. "Do you actually have orders from Fleet or did you snow my officers?"

"Shockingly, I'm completely on the up and up."

"Except for playing with my squad," she said, returning to her seat and her coffee.

Caz laughed and nodded with a guilty smirk. "I figured I'd take a peek. See if they lived up to the opinions floating around."

That revelation earned him a glare.

"Relax. From what I saw, they look solid. And your lieutenant is sharp-pegged me faster than I thought he would. Guess time with the salarians will make a person more wary," Calev noted. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a trio of OSDs. He laid the first two on the table easily. "Official orders from Hackett, for the log. Actual orders, your eyes only. I'll save you the trouble of reading it-essentially you are my one way ticket to the hurt locker."

"And that one?"

Caz walked over and let his index finger curve along the scar he had given her right below her right eye when they were kids. "This one is because I love it when you talk about birds."

The relief in his light laughter reminded her just how much she missed having people that knew her around. It made her hug him that much tighter when she stood up into a warm embrace.

"Just a heads up. Before you use this, make sure that lovely quarian of yours blocks off whatever system they are using to try break Saren Arterius' encryption. I'm not sure if the geth locked up that data or what, but when I got this and pulled it up on a system, it started shutting down power and life support and this is just the decryption module. I have no idea what you guys have. But you do not want it to have access to  _anything_."

"Are you serious?" she replied taking the OSD and eyeing it as if she would see any visual indicators of the danger on the disk.

"Sadly, yes." He leaned on the table near her. "You might even want to take it back to command have them prep you a single, non-networked system."

"A dedicated console wouldn't be able to handle it?"

Yet another shrug. "Like I said. I've never seen anything like this. And you know how I am. I've seen geth coding and encryption, salarian ciphers, and dealt with the best asari programming available, but this is something all together different. It is strange and dangerous."

Shepard let her mind race over the options before her, but she knew she would not make the final decision before talking with Alenko and Tali'Zorah. Tucking the OSD in her pocket, she winked at her friend. Then hugged him tightly again; it was almost like stealing back a piece of home, a piece of herself. Even if it was temporary, it was nice. "It's damn good to see you, Caz."

"Shit, after the past few years I've had, its damn well good to be seen," he replied into her shoulder as he held onto her just as tightly.

"That bad, huh?" Nyx asked, leaning back as she held his cheek and watched his eyes. She knew she would only read anything there if he allowed her to see it. He had always been better at masking everything than her.

The half-hearted shrug paired with a tired smile. "Isn't it always?"

To which Shepard could do little more than nod knowingly before hugging him again.


	14. Stand Alone Systems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy's team attempts a dangerous grab at some information, putting the crew and the ship and the crew in harm's way in an attempt to possibly catch up to Saren. Later a prank goes off a little too well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Mounds of appreciation to the wonderful ladies who beta'd this chapter: LadyAmesIndy and Chyrstis. And my thanks and appreciation to all the folks who have left comments and kudos on this piece, I'm glad you are enjoying it. I hope you continue to take as much pleasure from reading it as I do from writing it.

**14 Stand Alone Systems**

**/1/**

Kaidan's fingertips drummed against the wall of the elevator. Standing orders were to clear the cargo bay after the jump into whatever system the _Normandy_ was headed to and keep it so until they hit the relay again on their way back out. If his guess was right, the crew were likely still avoiding the bay until whatever had the ship virtually locked down into grids lifted. They had spent mere hours in the system, moving toward a location, dropping an asset, and getting out as fast as they could. The entire time spent under the protective blanket of the stealth systems, pushing the system to its limits. It was highly likely Adams might have sprouted more than a few gray hairs from the stress of the situation.

Alenko knew the drill with things like this, they all did--need to know. Those were the magic words that left 98% of the crew out of the loop. Most of whom were perfectly happy not to know; Kaidan was not entirely sure if he was among the majority or not on that particular matter. Regardless, they all just followed the adjusted orders, made due without the systems that were locked out entirely or choked for specific users, and did their jobs as best they could until things went back to some semblance of normal operating procedure.

The lieutenant spent most of the last fifty hours with Tali'Zorah and Commander Zingel trying to find a way around having to return to the Citadel so soon. Shepard made it inordinately clear that returning to any Fleet facility at this point was a last resort. The trouble was that on a ship the size of the _Normandy_ it was nearly impossible to find a system not part of her network grid.

Or so it had seemed at first. Alenko was still a little surprised that neither he nor Tali had thought of the solution that came to him just prior to the jump. The lieutenant thought there might be one system that could fit the bill, but hated that it took him so long to come up with that possible approach.

When the door lowered, he discovered his earlier guess was right. The bay was deserted, except for Shepard who was leaning against the knobby front tire of the Mako, studying her knife rather intently. In that instant, a voice in his head reminded him of the supposed reason he was there. All the while he knew that checking in on her ranked as high on his priority list as telling the commander he had a viable alternative to returning to Fleet.

Deciding to keep his distance, he stopped and leaned near the open door of the Mako. "How are you doing, Shepard?"

"Oh, me?"

He could hear it in her voice, the strain, even though he had already seen it in the anxious tension that seemed to tie her up for the past few days. She never even glanced in his direction, just stared at the blackened blade as it moved too easily in her hands.

"I am stellar. Yep. Just abandoned my best friend in the galaxy in extremely hostile territory and now I'm going to do a wellness check on some damn backwater planet, because the big guys don't want this to blow back on the Alliance, the _Normandy_ , or the first human Spectre just in case this all goes to hell in a hand cart. So, I'm just peachy."

Kaidan ignored the tone. He understood it. It was worse than leaving someone behind. He could only imagine precisely what she must be feeling, because, as uncomfortable as Alenko was with the situation on an operational level, he barely knew the officer they just left in some unknown corner of the galaxy.

"Shit," she grumbled as she got to her feet. "Sorry. Just kind of … Ignore me."

"I get it," the lieutenant replied, certain there was practically no way he would be able to comply with her suggestion even if he wanted to. He already tried that approach and it failed as miserably as the other tactics he had employed to get a handle on his interest.

Shepard set her foot on one of the protrusions on the tire and sheathed the knife. It fit quite snuggly in her boot--barely noticeable except for the red circle-R on the knob at the base of the hilt. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant?"

He stared at her for a moment trying to reclaim the reason he found to justify his being in the bay. "I think I might have a solution to the network issue."

The news curved her lips into a smile and her eyebrows rose curiously. "Do tell."

Kaidan ran his hand over the metal shell of the vehicle they were leaning on then tapped it. "The Mako."

Her brow furrowed.

"Her systems aren't on the _Normandy's_ grid. Totally self-contained and self-powered, unless we are pulling the logs or telemetry, or, you know, other system maintenance. So, we should be able to use the computers on the Mako to crack the data. Once we separate the data from any malicious programming running we can pull it off the system."

"And what happens if that thing breaks my ground vehicle?"

"We can totally wipe and refresh the Mako's systems on a whim. Without connecting her to the _Normandy_. It's a win-win. Before we start we can disconnect the drive shafts and clear the weapons, which will leave the Mako stranded and innocuous, even if the program infiltrates the vehicle's systems. It might mess with the life support in the compartment, but if we're suited up first it won't be an issue. She's perfect for the job," he noted, patting the vehicle again and watching Shepard.

"Sounds like you've thought of everything, Alenko. Nice work. When can you have everything ready?"

"Handful of hours."

"Do it," she stated, patting him on the shoulder as she passed to the elevator. "Pull whoever you need and call me when you're ready."

"Yes, ma'am." He straightened as she entered the elevator. As soon as the doors closed his pushed his hands through his hair then laced them together behind his neck as he looked around at the empty bay.

 

**/2/**

Adams and Pressly were not pleased with the idea. Shepard listened to their arguments one more time. They focused mainly on the fact that the _Normandy's_ ground vehicle could be virtually hijacked on the ship. No matter the precautions that were taken there was a great deal of concern that any malicious software could merely overload the power core on the Mako and blow a hole in the ship. While it was a viable possibility, the commander was willing to place her faith in Alenko and the quarian keeping that from happening.

"Look, I get it. I really do. And if we lose the Mako that'll be a crying damn shame. But Saren is running free and clear right now because between the Council, the Alliance, and us--no one can find dick on this slippery bastard," Shepard stated frankly. Both men stared at her a little shocked, and she remembered who she was talking to. Fleet officers were a lot different than marines she recalled quickly. Suddenly she was glad they were in the elevator when she said it or she could have had an entire deck full of crew staring at her the same way her ranking officers on the ship were.

"Tali'Zorah and Lieutenant Alenko assure me that they have taken measures to ensure that even if there is something on this disc that can affect the vehicle that it will not have the chance to do so. And to be safe, once we crack the encryption, we are wiping the Mako's system. Believe me. I do not like to take chances where it can be avoided."

"Then why aren't we going back to the Citadel to do this at Command?" Pressly demanded, his hand still on the panel, securing the door in place to keep it from lowering.

"Because orders state we are going to _Hades Gamma_. We are to stay in that system for at least one Earth cycle, though they'd prefer more."

"Then why don't we get there, do our cycle, then get this data?"

"Saren already has the head start dreams are made of, Pressly. We were playing catch up before the Council defrocked him. And while I snatched the asari out of his hands I don't think she was anything more than a way to guarantee he could keep her mother in check. She was a tool not an asset. We have _nothing_. That disc. This risk. It is our only chance at something right now."

"I don't think it's worth it."

"Neither do I," Adams agreed.

"Your disapproval is duly noted. Feel free to record it in the log, X-O. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me."

Pressly glared at her as he removed his hand from the controls. As the door fell, Shepard squared her shoulders and gritted her teeth. It felt like too many of the arguments she had with the brass most of her career. Operatives in the field take a risk and catch hell from the Fleet because the flags feel they should have found some way to jump through ten hoops to makes sure it was done with as little liability as possible.

_You know what, sometimes the reward is worth the prospect of peril_. Or at least that's what told herself. She weighed the options again. Seven days, that was all the time it would take to get to the Antaeus System, look in on some surveyors on Trebin, then get back to the Citadel.

Nyx chewed at the inside of her lip as she slowly crossed the bustling bay. A palpable tension filled the entire ship, but here it was thickest. Several MPs were on hand, there was a large representation from the engineering crew, and everyone was wearing hardsuits. Everyone was prepared for the possibility that the hull could be breached by the explosion of the Mako's core. It was the only eventually they could not outright prevent mechanically.

_Is seven days worth the ship? Worth the crew? Worth the three lives that would surely be taken if the unlikely took place? That's always the question._ Even if they failed, Shepard knew the data would not be lost. She was also certain that whatever Caz delivered to her was not unique. He would have a backup of it somewhere.

Grabbing her helmet off the table next to Ashley, she gave the chief a wink and a nod. Even if her confidence was not 100%, Shepard was going to make damn sure she was the only one aware of that fact.

"All right people." Her voice boomed through the open space. "Non-vital personal will remove themselves from my cargo bay." Her eyes moved through the room, locking with Wrex, Garrus, Ashley, and Liara for a moment. "Joker, start the monitoring systems so that Command can have a copy for my posthumous court martial if this goes south."

"Sure thing, Commander."

_Goddamn, he sounds way to chipper about that idea._ "Hey Wrex, remind me if I live through this, to slap the pilot."

Wrex's laugh grumbled through the bay. It was not particularly relaxing, but Nyx found an odd comfort in the sound. It felt almost as if he was certain he would have the pleasure of participating in that exchange. Five minutes after the call to clear the bay a handful of people remained. An emergency response team gathered near the door to engineering, farthest from the vehicle.

Shepard pointed at them. "You boys keep your heads down. If this thing goes up, do your jobs fast and safe. That will get these people home. You read me?"

"Five-by-five, ma'am," Adams acknowledged.

Shepard rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder. _This is almost worse than facing down that batarian unarmed. Let's just hope this works out half as well, Shepard._ She tugged her helmet on and connected the seals. A quick tap on her omnitool told her the environmental system of her suit was functioning properly.

When she climbed into the Mako, Shepard nodded at the two members of her squad who worked out all the details of this little scheme. Tali knelt on the back seat as she unscrewed the back panel of the vehicle. She was essentially the kill switch if something went hairy.

"We good?" Shepard asked on a closed channel with her squad.

The affirmative responses held traces of anxiety, for which she could not blame either of them. Though it was not evident in her voice, Shepard was keenly aware of her own nerves.

"Joker, we're going to go ahead and get this started. Adams, is your team ready?"

"Aye aye, Commander," the engineer replied. He had insisted on being part of the response team. She allowed it because she knew he would be able to keep his team calm and under control, at least relatively, if things did go wrong.

"All right Alenko. It's your ball," Shepard stated. She glanced at Tali who nodded then Nyx leaned back into the little nook behind the driver's seat occupied by the lieutenant.

The power came on in the vehicle and Nyx noticed Alenko ball his hands in fists before flexing and wriggling his fingers. Everyone was walking on the knife's edge. But Nyx knew they had to try it. They were already too far behind Saren and whatever he was planning to wait another week. _You hope_.

Inserting the disk with the intelligence occurred without incident, but the addition of the second disk was not so innocuous. Shepard's attention pulled away from the screen when the whirring started. The brownout made the lights dim for a moment before they came back up to full power and dimmed again. Tali's hands were busy at an anterior console, attending to the Mako's systems, Shepard knew from the briefing on the plan, while Kaidan's attention was completely focused on cracking the data. When the door of the Mako slammed shut, Nyx bit her bottom lip.

Useless. That's how she felt. But that was the plan. She trusted Alenko and the quarian to have it all under control, but Shepard refused to let them do this on their own. While there was little support the Spectre could offer her team beyond blowing up the damn vehicle herself, Nyx did have one job--the only task they needed an extra pair of hands for.

Tali'Zorah and the lieutenant prepared for every eventuality anyone suggested in the briefing. To the commander's estimation they planned out every possible and probable outcome. When Shepard suggested that the quarian be the one to hack through Saren's files, because she was more suited to that task, Tali stated that they considered that option already, but decided on this route because of her familiarity with repairing hacked systems. Tali felt her experience there would be more vital and thereby offer Alenko more time to crack the files.

Shepard's nerves frayed with every ticking second and the while the cabin lights continued to flicker they did not seem to be affecting the computer systems. The telltale hiss of the cabin venting made Nyx cross her arms a little tighter over her chest. Her thumb brushed her wrist and the timer flashed on the HUD of her visor. _Three minutes. Feels like ten._ She felt more than heard the quick exhalation she made as her eyes moved from the back of the Mako to the front seat again.

Her lips pursed as the silence continued. This was not how she worked--standing watch as her people go after some invisible enemy. _Caz always said you needed to read up more. Keep up on the latest tech. If nothing else just so you could keep your own damn omnitool in top shape. Why the hell didn't you listen? He even offered to teach you to code. But no. You just had to train with Sergeant Egami._ Shepard rested the front of her visor in her one hand as she closed her eyes against the clock that seemed to tick by so slowly.

Syncopated beeping, a dying hiss, more tapping, and a little wavering whirring hum. The sounds seemed to get louder as it drew on. The whole time Shepard wondered what was going on, even watching them she really could not determine what either of her teammates was doing, other than saving her ass and her ship. The clock spun past the seven minute mark.

"Yes!"

It was muffled, as if unintended. Shepard caught the tail end of a quick little celebratory gesture.

"Saving the decrypted data now," Alenko announced more clearly.

"Give me the word," Tali replied with a heavy note of relief, her fingers still whizzing over her console. "Shepard. I need you to grab that conduit now."

"On it." Nyx took the step and a half to the back and knelt near the quarian's feet.

"Done!"

"Done," Tali called, repeating the lieutenant's all clear. "Shepard."

With that the commander twisted and unlocked the conduit. The entire vehicle went dark and silent. Nyx sat back on the floor, taking a long slow breath, before she keyed her mic. "Joker, could you please inform the ship that we will not be making any emergency stops on this flight. Nicely done, you two," she added on the secure channel she shared with the squad.

"Thank you, Shepard," the pair replied in unison, both their voices communicating their obvious satisfaction at having pulled it off.

"Guess I should be glad neither of you are afraid of the dark." They all laughed.

 

**/3/**

The Mako spent several hours with the status of large and glorified paperweight. No chances were being taken. The commander stood vigil the entire time. No one could touch the data until the vehicle's systems were back online, because while some risks were acceptable, putting anything like that in the _Normandy's_ network was not going to happen. Ashley leaned against the table next to Shepard and eyed her for a moment. The tension still obvious in the tightness of her pose, the relaxed recline against the table was anything but as the shorter woman kept her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"Penny for your thoughts, Commander."

"I want those files," Shepard replied lowly.

Williams nodded. That much was obvious.

Once the engineering crew pried the squad out of the vehicle, Shepard had taken up the spot she still held. The CO stared at the Mako so intensely that it was almost as if she was trying to will the vehicle back online. "Adams' guys did say it would take a few hours to get her back up once you guys downed her."

"And the two hour timetable came and went five minutes ago."

"Damn, C-O, give them a little leeway." Ashley regretted it the moment Shepard turned those sharp appraising eyes on her. Instinct made the chief straighten rigidly. "Sorry, ma'am."

Nyx took a deep breath and shook her head. "No. You're right. I just have never been all that good at waiting. I kind of suck at it actually."

"Never would have guessed," Williams muttered.

"Don't push it, Chief," Shepard replied with a grin.

Both women stepped forward when the Mako started to purr like a drunk kitten from hell. A wide grin crossed the blonde woman's face when the lieutenant hopped out the door a few minutes later holding up the shiny little disc and wearing a pleased look.

"All clear, Shepard," he called as he crossed the deck at a trot, toward the advancing N7.

"My squad. My quarters," Shepard called in a booming voice, inspecting the shimmering circle in her hands. "Joker, have Pressly meet us there. Adams the bridge is yours, sir."

The ground team fell into step behind her; all of them had been hovering. After all this was the reason most of them were on the _Normandy_ in the first place, well except for Williams and Alenko. The others assisted with whatever came up, never grumbling about the work that mainly came from the Alliance. But the reason they remained might well be found on that little sliver of shiny material, and they were all keyed up to know what was on it. Williams leaned against the wall and the nervous tension in the elevator seemed to overpower everything else. There was a sense of anticipation that seemed odd considering what they were looking forward to was a fight and not something enjoyable.

Nyx wore a calculating little smile as she twirled the OSD between her fingers. Alenko's brow was drawn tightly, but there was a pleased little curve to his lips. Tali's arms folded tightly over her chest, but she bounced lithely on the balls of her feet as the elevator seemed to creep toward the crew deck. Vakarian's back was ramrod straight as he smoothed a hand nervously down the center of his chest. The doctor fidgeted, yet again obviously demonstrating her lack of familiarity with this type of situation. The choreography of each of squad member's anxiety played out to the low grumble that emanated from deep within the krogan's thick chest.

Pressly was a few steps ahead of them when the group exited the elevator. "Commander?" he greeted, noticing the pack she led toward the area that served as her office and her personal space.

"X-O."

The curt formality between the two of them was not lost on the chief. The whole squad had borne witness to the disagreement, if you could call it that, between the operator and two of her line officers. The exchange still played in the forefront of Ashley's mind as a testament to the differences between the various sides of the fence even within the Alliance. Shepard was an operator, and Ashley, while she might be hard pressed to give name to the differences between Nyx, Pressly, and Adams, Williams could still see them painted in bold colors.

Crossing the room at something akin to a march, Shepard stopped and glanced over her shoulder before she put the disc into her console. Williams understood the hesitation. If Tali and Alenko had missed anything, it could access every system on the ship from that device. Trust. It was a vital part of any team. They all trusted the commander with their lives, not just the squad, the whole damn crew. Her sliding that OSD into the system was her exhibition of trust in her squad's abilities.

"Mr. Adams, if your guys detect any anomalies, inform me at once."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

She tapped a few other keys on the console and the room locked down. No one would enter or leave for this digital excursion.

"Let's see what Saren left behind."

 

**/4/**

Six hours, four consoles, and a few omnitools. That's what it took to dig through the disheveled data Saren had left behind. Not surprisingly it was the researcher that found the key. On a whim Liara pulled up a program she used when doing research for articles in the past. It paid off. A few noticed references that tied back to the Attican Beta and they found evidence that there was something in the Theseus System that heavily interested the defrocked Spectre.

Liara and Pressly opted to combine efforts to refine the rest of the data in Saren's files. While they compiled a more comprehensive briefing, which left Shepard sifting through Arterius' files on her own.

Concentrating on the reports the turian crafted, the commander hoped that they might lend some insight into the way he thought. The way he worked. She did not have the background on him that she usually did on her targets. But then again usually her targets were a little less large and a lot more open about themselves. There was almost nothing on Saren since he joined the Spectres, and anything that might have been known about him before had been locked down by the Hierarchy after his appointment; or so she discovered after a few careful and diplomatically crafted requests.

It made her wonder if the Alliance had done something similar, perhaps locking away her own files in some dusty place where the skeletons of her own career could not be disturbed. Nyx shook off that thought. If they did or did not, it would not change the fact that she finally had something on Saren.

Insight into her adversary might have come easier if the Hierarchy was less rigid, but she held out little expectation that the turian government would offer her any assistance or insight into one of their own who had just been branded a traitor, but she asked anyway. Officially and unofficially. Marric Toran, an old associate, had been much gentler in his rebuff, reminding her that the turian culture still largely functioned on the tenuous currency of honor. She could not really blame them for not wanting to acknowledge Saren or what he was doing. His actions were a black mark, a smudge that their government, and the Council as well, would rather pretend did not exist.

"Commander," Pressly's voice rang off the metal surfaces and the interior of her skull, jerking her out of her contemplative state. "Encrypted communication incoming. Caller's in a window."

With that revelation Shepard was on her feet and out the door at a run. From the notation that the transmission was on a channel with limited communications access, the commander half expected it to be a quick whisper that she should not be receiving. Or at least she hoped it might be Caz offering her a respite from the guilty feeling she carried for being the one to drop him off alone on some god-forsaken moon.

The voices she heard, though familiar, did not belong to Calev Zingel. In all honesty she knew it was too soon to hear anything, good or bad, from her friend, but that did not stop the slump of her shoulders when the wave of disappointment washed over her.

"Greetings from the Valhallan Threshold," Commander James Lassiter said with way too much glee. But then again her old commanding officer always had been a little on the chipper side.

"You must be beside yourself, you crazy Viking. Laid eyes on any Valkyrie?" she asked lightly.

"Not yet, but a little bird did tell me you're slated to do a flyby on Trebin. Just wanted to give you a heads up. They went dark a few days ago."

"They've been transmitting requests for assistance regularly for a while now, looks like an automated beacon."

"We know. And it did not send up any flags until our boys found some poorly scraped data that suggests there was a little more going on there than a colonization survey."

Shepard leaned back against the railing and stared at her boots. "Like?"

"No idea. Vague references to experiments is all Tzon and the twidgets[i] can pull."

As if hearing his name were a summons to the conversation, Shepard's former primary sniper made his presence known. Jacob Tzon swore up and down that becoming a Spectre was a promotion and she owed them all a round of drinks. Shepard politely reminded him about the bottle of whiskey she'd left at the team's HQ, which her old teammate felt did not adequately cover the debt.

"Wish I had more for you, Shepard, but this place was stripped to the bones before we got here. I think we got lucky to find this much," Lassiter concluded.

"Dead on. Whoever cleared this place, they were … thorough," Chief Dave Jensen added with wariness.

"I'll forward the pieces to you on the tail end of this," Lassiter broke back in.

Nyx had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to the scene at her old team's location than either man was giving her, based on familiarity with them and the types of situations her old team handled in the past.

"So it's all working out up there in Citadel Space?" Chief Jensen asked, shifting gears and feeling out his old CO.

"About as well as it can on no intel and running from fight to fight," Shepard replied.

Jensen laughed to cover up his irritation. "You're doing the same job then, just with better equipment."

"And the pay raise was kind of nice."

"Yeah, and a hundred credits says, you're using it to stuff your mattress like always."

Operations Chief Dave Jensen had known Shepard since she was a wet behind the ears pup. He was not just her chief, he was her friend, but that came part in parcel to having married Lin Apraxin, who was one of the few people closest to Shepard. Lin and Shepard grew up together, as much as one could given their situations, Calev Zingel was also part of that rotating mix of kids Shepard met on her father's postings. The chief and the commander always worked well together and were cordial, but when he married into her extended family, they became much closer.

He was one of the very few people that could claim to know Commander Shepard and Nyx--and in the officer's own mind the two parts of herself were not always synonymous, though they did bear striking similarity to one another in some ways.

"How's your new bunch? Any standouts?" Jensen queried.

Nyx knew he wanted to know how they measured up to her old team. "Pretty solid, and they all stand out from the crowd."

"Heard some whispers about that. A krogan, huh?"

Her laugh was light. Last krogans her team happened upon were just as capable as Urdnot Wrex, but a lot less personable. "Bring 'em home, Chief, and thank Lassie for the intel. Let him know we're headed out now for all intents and purposes. And I'll keep him posted, even if it's just through official channels."

"Will do. Watch your back, Shep. And good hunting," he grumbled at her.

Dave was as protective of his people as Shepard was, she was also fully aware that regardless of where she was stationed, her old friend would only ever count her as one of his people. It was a feeling she reciprocated; Shepard might not head Arcturus Seven any longer, but in many ways they were still all her guys, her friends.

The new information did not sit well with the officer. While the intelligence they already had suggested that the regular transmission might just be automated, if that was indeed the case there was no reason for it to suddenly go dark. What was worse, A7's updated intelligence hinted at the possibility that there might be something more to the site than was officially on record. When she saw the name ExoGeni, Shepard's hackles went up. It was the same name Liara and Pressly found in Saren's files.

Her pace out of the comm room was as swift as when she entered. "Pressly send the data that just came in through to my quarters." She heard the start of the _aye aye_ , but passed through the hatch before it could finish.

"Commander," Liara greeted quietly as Shepard crossed the deck at a good clip.

"Doctor." The nod was polite if not curt, given the commander's distraction. Shepard continued past the asari, waving her along with encouragement to follow. "Forgive my distraction. Is there something I can help you with?"

The asari took a few steps into the room then stopped. When Shepard finally looked over at her, the commander noticed the box and the rather sheepish look. "I understand. I just thought I should drop this off."

"Oh?" Shepard asked, watching the researcher set the white box on the table.

"I hope you won't be offended. It is a child's toy, at least in my culture. Used to help develop precision. I thought perhaps it might help you with … what we talked about." Liara tucked her hands behind her back when Shepard glanced at the fidgeting.

"That's… very… kind. Umm, thank you, Liara."

"My pleasure, Shepard."

The demure bow of the head that T'Soni offered as she left seemed a little odd to the commander. But with the distraction removed, Shepard's mind returned quickly to the situation laid before her, literally as she eyed the collection of devices that littered her desk with data from Saren's files, reports, briefings.

"Commander." Pressly's voice rang off the bulkheads of her quarters.

"XO."

"You should have those files, ma'am."

"Appreciate it."

Shepard took up the box and lifted the lid--a collection of silvery rings of varying sizes lay carefully packed in navy blue paper. The note suggested that she start with the largest of the rings and work to the smallest. Nyx shook her head and set the box aside on her desk. _That is a experiment for a different day_ , she told herself as she pulled up the fragments from the Valhallan Threshold.

 

**/5/**

Ashley, slated for the ground team hitting Trebin, kept herself hard at work prepping weapons for the rest of those that would going as well. Whether she was putting boots on the ground or not, the chief handled all the team's weapons, except Wrex's shotgun--he refused let anyone near it. By the time she finished the load out, about twenty minutes before their estimated time of arrival, she heard the lift. The chief expected a reaction, but part of her still was not quite sure how Shepard would take the playful bit of payback.

"Chief!" The small blonde's voice boomed off the metallic surfaces.

Ash turned quickly, fear tickling the back of her neck for a moment at the tone in the commander's voice and the way the vowels were drawn out. When the brunette caught sight of Shepard, Williams raised her fist in front of her mouth as she tried not to laugh.

"What the _hell_ is this?" Shepard shouted, holding her hands out to her side as she looked down at the armor set the chief had procured.

Swallowing heard at the retributive glee bubbling inside her, Ashley straightened and mustered all the composure she could scrape together. "I have no idea what you mean, Skipper," Williams said. She bit her cheek when she felt the smile creeping across her face again. The stutter in her voice hinted at the young woman's battle not to laugh. "You told me to find you an armor upgrade with more tech resistance. That's what I did."

The commander was not amused, or at least she did not look amused as she strode across the deck purposefully. Usually you could not hear Shepard's approach, but this time each step rang off the deck until she stopped within inches of the chief and narrowed her eyes at the soldier.

"Ma'am!" the chief barked straightening, as she suddenly lost the ability to find humor in the situation.

The commander glared at her for a moment, then took a step back as she took a deep breath and propped her hands on her hips, shifting her weight to one foot. Shepard stared at the younger woman.

_The stance doesn't help_ , Williams thought. The mostly grayish-white armor was trimmed to accentuate the curves of the female human, or that's what the volus had told Ashley in a breathier voice than normal. And he had been right. The detailing was compounded by the fact that the breastplate, and only the breast plate, was finished in a dark grey which made the Commander's assets more prominent. 

"Seriously?" Shepard finally said. "This is my tech defense upgrade."

"Hey," Williams shrugged as she turned back to the disassembled weapon on her worktable. "I just do what I'm told."

"It's actually quite practical, Shepard," Liara offered from the locker she was leaning against. The asari ignored the glaring glance the human shot her in response. "For urban combat situations the pattern and coloring is ideal. It will more than adequately serve to break up your silhouette if the team meets any resistance in urban locales."

"I think I'd rather be seen by every geth under Saren's command, than go unseen in this," Shepard retorted, with a trace of unease, as she crossed her arms over her chest as if it might help her feel less exposed.

"Look at it this way, it could be safety fucking yellow," Williams interjected with quick glance at the commander. Ash referred to the last upgrade Shepard procured for the chief from the quartermaster--black undersuit, bright yellow plating. It made Williams look like an assault bumblebee, and she hated it.

Shepard howled in recognition, her laughter lightening the mood tremendously.

"Payback's a son of bitch, ain't it, Skipper?"

"Just remember that," Shepard muttered as she leaned past the chief and grabbed her assault rifle.

Ashley realized she had not thought her little plan through entirely when Alenko arrived not long after. She turned her head toward the sound of the arriving lift out of instinct and nearly choked when she noticed his gaze fixate on the commander. Shepard's attention was thankfully wrapped up in her weapons for the moment. The chief's eyes darted to the turian's. Garrus had been in on her little prank.

Deciding she should be chivalrous and allow the L-T a moment to recover his senses, Williams cleared her throat. "That reminds me. I did get you one thing you'll like."

The chief finished reassembling the pistol and held it out grip first to Shepard. Williams felt relieved that the distraction seemed to keep the blonde's attention. With a covert glance across the bay, Ashley noticed Alenko's eyes were still wide and glued to the new hardsuit that clearly defined the commander's feminine curves. The chief's intention had only been to embarrass the commander a little, not to shock the lieutenant into a stupor.

Nyx took the proffered pistol and turned to lean on the edge of the table as she tested the weight of it in her hands. She checked to make sure it was unloaded, even though she had just seen Williams reassemble it, then raised it to dry fire a few times to get a feel for the trigger. The chief took no offense that Shepard checked the weapon again, Ash would have done the same thing; she knew all too well that some habits just became ingrained after doing them so often.

While the CO seemed focused on her new toy, the lieutenant's eyes moved slowly, guided along by the lines of the Ursa armor, and it was all Williams could do not to lose it then and there. Ashley found she needed a new direction to look, and turned a little to the right to see a similar inspection being made by the asari. To her credit, Liara seemed a little less panicked as her attention followed similar lines as the lieutenant.

Ashely closed her eyes for a moment then the soldier took a deep breath and looked at the gun, which Shepard was touching rather delicately; the chief figured it was the only safe place to look to keep from embarrassing one or all three of them. Glancing up again, Williams saw the slight hint of panic in Alenko's eyes, she almost felt bad for him, since he was part of the ground team this go around.

"Very nice, Chief. How much is the Alliance paying for this?"

Garrus moved toward them and placed himself between Alenko and Shepard. Ashley knew Vakarian and the lieutenant got on well, and she assumed the turian was doing exactly what she was--trying to lessen anyone's embarrassment. She wondered if he might feel some pangs of the same guilt she noticed shades of. Ashley realized in their rush to mess with the commander they had not thought about the other possible consequences; and of all people, Williams thought she should have since she had borne witness to a few signs that Alenko might be at least a little interested in their CO prior to this exchange.

In all truthfulness, Ashley never expected the volus' claims about accentuation to be all that accurate. In her wildest imaginings she could not have expected the Ursa hardsuit to be quite so scandalous. The armor seemed to accentuate everything to excess. The volus might have been more correct than any of them could have realized when he said it was the sexiest armor in the galaxy. Both, Garrus and the chief merely chalked that up to a sales tactic

"Actually, the Chief here got the volus to throw it in, gratis. She can be very convincing," Garrus said with a reverberating little laugh that held a nervous note. "Though it might have helped that Wrex and I were with her. And, come to think of it, Wrex was fondling his shotgun in some very suggestive and provocative ways."

Shepard held the pistol out, testing the trigger again and checking the sight.

"Aww. You even lined up my sights." She set the weapon onto her hip and put both hands over her heart. "I'm touched, Chief," her voice was sickeningly sweet, but there was a sincerely appreciative look in the commander's eyes.

"Whatever," Ashley replied playfully as she cleared her own assault rifle in preparation.

"Five minutes, Commander," Joker added. "And for the record, I bet if you just shake your hips at the geth, their heads will explode from a computation error."

That did it, the room erupted in laughter as Shepard looked straight ahead, the barest hint of a smile lifting at the corners of her mouth, and said, "Thank you for your input, Flight Lieutenant."

"Always happy to help, Commander."

 

**/6/**

The lieutenant slumped against the back of the passenger compartment staring at the seam in the ceiling after quickly discovering it to be the only safe place to direct his gaze. Taken with the lingering conversations, the ease with which he would let himself recall the same, Kaidan's head usually spun around Shepard. And Kaidan knew there was no way he was going to get the image of that armor out of his head. The newest spotlight cast on her was bound to just add more fuel to the fire blazing through his already distracted brain. Inadvertently, he made the situation that much worse by his misguided attempt to get some distance from her. Sitting in the back of the Mako had been a bigger mistake than he realized at first.

He closed his eyes and shook his head again, trying to force out the memory of her slithering past him before climbing into her chair. Kaidan shifted quickly, screwing his eyes closed and pressing the heels of his hands against them. _What the hell is wrong with you? You're a damned professional, Alenko. Well then, act like it, Lieutenant_ , the voice in the back of his head taunted. Rubbing his hands against the tops of his thighs, he stared at the ceiling again, continuing his silent chastisement.

Checking the panel in front of the chief, he could tell they were closing in on the location where the base camp was supposed to be. _Two minutes_ , he guesstimated _. Two minutes to get your shit together, Staff Lieutenant._ _Can't believe I'm acting like some damn school boy in heat._ His head bobbed with the motion of the vehicle, and he started to think maybe he was getting closer to some semblance of calm when that little voice that like to prod from the dark corners of his mind whispered some of the same things that had run through his head when he first entered the cargo bay.

_Armor is not supposed to look like that_ , he thought as he fought with his rebellious and stirred up subconcious.

When they reached the destination, Alenko broke form. The entire squad knew Shepard's habit of being the first to put boots on the ground, though it had taken on the guise of standing order. But Kaidan doubted he could just sit there and watch her wriggle past him. The lieutenant secured his helmet and, once everyone else had done the same, he popped the hatch and ducked out.

_Just breathe. And don't look at her. You'll be fine._ Or at least that was what he told himself. Clearing the abandoned camp quickly, he was able to distract himself with the task of breaking into a secured terminal in what seemed to be the administrative building of the little settlement, and pulling any and all useful information off it.

" _Normandy_ ," Shepard called matter-of-factly over the comm channel.

Static was the only response.

"Williams, check your link."

Their voices played in the back of his head, while his attention focused on the terminal. When the chief's response went unanswered, Shepard sent the chief to the Mako to check the tightbeam link.

"No dice, C-O. I try a few more freqs see if I can raise her," Williams advised over their channel.

Kaidan felt himself jump with the pressure of Shepard's hand on his shoulder. The reaction was not out of surprise. It was her, and he knew it. She patted him lightly, a reassuring gesture, he knew.

"What's up with the comms?" she asked.

"Give me a second, I might have an answer in here for you," he replied, not taking his eyes off the console. He shifted slightly when she leaned toward the console just over his shoulder.

It was the first time he could recall having been glad to be on a planet that required a breather helmet. His jaw tightened and his breath caught in his throat. The reaction disturbed him slightly. He shook his head clear and tapped the screen.

"According to their logs, they thought some kind of atmospheric anomaly had been interfering with their communications and GPS satellites. But that doesn't seem right," he told himself as much as her when his omnitool interface slid open. Typing furiously, Alenko pulled up the scans the _Normandy_ had performed before they disembarked. "Our scans don't show anything like that."

His muscles tightened as he felt and saw her shift slightly closer, reading over his shoulder. Kaidan was all too aware of her hand still on him.

"Anything on our scan suggest what could be causing it?" She took a few steps back, finally, and leaned on a nearby desk as he went over the data again.

"Looks, like Pressly marked off some sort of anomalous signal, a few clicks south of us. It's in some rocky terrain," Kaidan advised.

Through the face mask the only part of her face still clearly visible were her vibrant blue eyes, and the crinkle at the edges of them were the only display of the grin that brightened her voice. "And now everyone wishes Tali were here." Her laugh rang through his head. "You almost done here?"

"Just about."

Ashley ran up to the building, keying her mic. Her voice was shockingly calm, but Alenko attributed that to the fact that she had likely taken some extra time to consider the situation. "Still nothing, Skipper. It's like once they broke atmo, we lost 'em."

"Yeah, looks like Pressly's scans might have picked up the culprit, though. We're going to check it out and see if we can't reestablish contact. I'm sure Pressly is in Joker's lap just about now."

"No doubt. I can imagine this might have him on edge."

Shepard straightened and moved for the door. "Let's go find that signal."

"Just remember to buckle up, Williams," Alenko jested, cluing his teammate in to the fact that the terrain where they were headed was bumpy.

"Aw, shit. Really?"

The three of them just laughed. When they climbed in the Mako this go around, Alenko was first, and called shotgun. It was a lot easier to take the proximity the vehicle forced on them with consoles between them, as well as the distraction of the systems which required monitoring. With the added dilemma of a loss in communications, he found it much easier to concentrate on something other than the commander and her thought-provoking armor; though in those moments of calm she seemed to creep back into his mind.

There was an easy answer for the communications issue that plagued the survey team as well as the _Normandy's_ squad--sabotage. A beacon placed in some high terrain was reprogramming the satellites to crash land. It had also been set to sabotage communication off planet at a prescheduled date and time. The beacon itself bore no signs of who left it there. The generic after market piece of equipment was completely untraceable, and the programming bore no traces of its creator. Despite the questions this raised, the team still bathed in a sense of relief once communications were reestablished with the _Normandy_.

The whole situation was shifty from the get go. Teams just did not disappear without a trace leaving no signs of anything. The terminals had been scrubbed, though not completely, Alenko managed to pull some piecemeal data off them, though most of it was going to have to be reconstructed. Then there was the beacon. When they reached the excavation site, things got a little stranger. Shepard toed at the welding unit lolling on the grating near the entrance after they discovered that the entrance to the mine completely sealed, from the outside.

"Pirates or slavers?" Ashley asked as she examined at the door.

"Slavers don't typically work this clean," Shepard noted, staring out at the terrain.

"Pirates wouldn't cut off a supply chain," Alenko added before he relit the torch.

"Then, what?" Williams queried. The chief stood next to the commander, assault rifle in hand.

"Not sure."

Shepard's voice was low and held that note of wariness that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Alenko was nearly certain that was a partial truth at best. There were rumors about things like this. Most soldiers heard the whispers about mercenaries with vendettas or just masochistic streaks that would employ extreme methods of torture when they came across smaller groups with less than adequate security. Then there were the more extreme tales about the things that happened at the edge of the traverse. The thought of it made his stomach turn. One thing was certain though, his desire to find out what was in this dig site ranked below nil. At best they were going to find a lot of bodies, and he chose not to consider any of the possibilities on negative side of that particular bell curve.

Entering the excavation site, things were eerily quiet. Their slow movement through the tunnels, suggested Kaidan's at best had been an accurate guess. When they initially entered the main chamber, there was a brief moment when it seemed like he might have been wrong. There was nothing there, save for supplies and tools. The splash of a boot in a shallow puddle was answered with a scream that ripped through the silence.

The site was filled with husks. The team held their ground as long as they could, but there were a lot of them. The trio wound up slowly back tracking toward the entrance. When they reached the shaft, the lieutenant holstered his pistol and relied solely on his biotics trying to keep as much distance between the husks and the team.

"What the hell?" Williams gasped.

"I didn't see any of those spikes," Kaidan agreed, trying to catch his breath as well. "Geth might explain why the site was so clean."

"True, but not why the site was sealed shut. The husks aren't a threat to the geth," Shepard stated as she strode back toward the main cavern. "You two, get me a count and any identifying … whatever. If you can."

The two subordinates watched as Shepard unholstered her pistol and turned behind a stack of crates. Kaidan and Ashley set to the task of trying to identify anyone, but there was nothing left. He did take a few scans and photos of these creatures to compare with the data from Eden Prime variety they had seen.

When another screech echoed off the rock, he and Williams were on their feet quickly, pistols in hand. The single shot was preceded but a familiar liquidy sound followed by a sharp clap, the distant pull and the sharp tingle in the air made Kaidan smile involuntarily. The clear signs of the biotic detonation were tinted with the field bleed common to the commander, all followed by the very characteristic sound of a powerful handgun.

Moments later, Shepard met them back near the entrance, holstering the new pistol. "Count?"

"Thirty-four," Alenko responded.

"Including the party crasher in the back?" she asked, thumbing past her shoulder.

"Yes, ma'am."

The commander eyed the site one last time. "Means we are six short. Let me guess no way to ID these … remains, right?"

"Nothing that we could find."

The facts tumbled through his head as he studied the gray face of one of the dead creatures. Forty people _missing_ \--six unaccounted for and no way to identify the six unless they popped up on someone's radar. Communications and all data links off planet cut intentionally. Someone wanted these people alone and lost. Someone wanted them to disappear. From the empty weapons lockers at base camp, not all of them were civilians, or at least not all civilian-trained. They would have put up a fight if they had been beset by slavers, but there was no sign of conflict at the camp. Then there was the missing data and the empty, sealed excavation site.

"This was not the geth. We're going to have to get alerts out on every one that was supposed to be part of this group," Shepard determined as they climbed back out of the shaft. Her head turned toward Kaidan as they continued out and toward the Mako. "I need that data cleaned up ASAP. I want to know what these people were doing here and what made them start that distress call. If they found something in that hole, I want to know what."

"Aye aye, Commander," the lieutenant replied.

"Pull Tali to help, might go faster."

Alenko nodded when she looked back at him over her shoulder.

 

[i] Twidgets: a slang term for tech-minded people, technicians, and engineers.


	15. Hellish Horticulture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Feros sets things in a new perspective for Shepard. The colony, the corporation, the geth, and the discovery of an ancient life form on the former Prothean world leave Shepard scrambling. Following ExoGeni's trail to the Maroon Sea, just pushes her a little farther.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Chyrstis & LadyAmesIndy, again my thanks for your time and assistance.

**15 Hellish Horticulture**

**/1/**

On the approach to Feros, no contact could be made. An automated landing beacon was the only signal the Normandy could pick up on the planet and guided the stealthed Alliance vessel to the port. They knew anyone that looked up would see them coming, but at least they had a chance at not setting off the other visitors too soon. Initial scans detected Geth drop ships, which served to heighten everyone's awareness. Anxiety increased exponentially across the board, when Shepard's shore party was unexpectedly greeted by a shifty little man with cryptic directions to seek out Fai Dan, the colony's leader, near a downed freighter.

A warm geth welcome interrupted Shepard's attempt to interrogate the human. The ambush set them on edge, despite knowing geth were on the ground, none of her team expected them to have advanced to that point. Once the docking area was cleared, the commander stood at the retaining wall and looked at the ship. "Joker. Pressly. Depressurize the seal to the dock."

"What?" Joker barked.

"Pardon?" Pressly added, mirroring the surprise of the pilot.

"There were geth on the dock. If they have infiltrated this far, I would rather not have them on my ship, if we can avoid it. Keep the connection, but I want the Normandy able to cut and run at a moment's notice if the need arises. And put extra security on the bridge and in the bay, just in case."

There was no response. Shepard noticed the concern in the faces of her ground team as well.

"Normandy, are you still receiving?"

There was another pause. "Five-by-five, Commander," Pressly stated tightly. "We're on it."

Once the trio entered the settlement, Nyx Shepard began second guessing herself. The shape of Zhu's Hope and the vastness of the geth presence on the planet set her teeth on edge. The time it had taken to learn about this place, then the ordered stop in the Hades Gamma Cluster delayed their arrival on the former prothean world by longer than the commander would have preferred. The state of Feros disturbed her and a feeling of guilt burrowed deep in the pit of her stomach.

The team made their way through the area where the colony retreated to after the early attacks made by the geth, the population there seemed a shadow of its reported size. There could not be more than a few dozen colonists remaining of the seventy or more listed on the roles that Saren possessed. The commander also took note of the manner in which everyone seemed to hold back on speaking with them, instead directing them in a manner similar to the man who greeted the ship.

When they finally located the colony's professed leader, Fai Dan, thinks just got stranger and hairier. Another squad of geth interrupted the tense meeting with the overly calm man and an understandably less so female. Shepard, Wrex, and Alenko held them off, eventually pushing them back. The team followed the synthetics incursion path and found themselves pinned in some oddly curving room with open air access that the drop ships made prime use of to deliver reinforcements right on top of the Spectre and her squad.

"If we can't get that ship drawn off, this is going to be a very long day," Shepard called as she ducked back behind her cover. A rocket made contact with the other side of her barricade. "Well, at least the Protheans built to last," she muttered to herself.

Wrex chuckled ominously at her from his own cover a few feet ahead of her. "Yeah, it was nice of them to leave you some place to cower behind."

She was firing again, allowing him an opening to move up, which he took despite toying with her. She pulled an unshielded trooper into the air close enough to the battlemaster for him to shred the synthetic with a shotgun blast.

"Now, that's what I'm talking about, Shepard."

"It's like fishing," Kaidan injected as he brought down another platform's shields. "She reels 'em in and you net it."

Shepard laughed at the insinuation that was virtually lost on the krogan. "Three o'clock, L-T," she warned, warping a target trying to flank the other marine. The unbalanced geth was an easy target for the sentinel's sharp aim.

They all looked overhead when the engines started to whine. "Looks like we were too much for them," Wrex said with a satisfied sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a growl. He took down another geth platform with his shotgun, yelling at it. "Momma left you here all alone with me. Poor baby."

They cleared out the remaining stragglers, and checked the room. Shepard saw, or thought she saw, movement from one platform and dropped one shot from her shotgun into its flashlight head, then gave it a little kick to dare it to twitch again. "Son of a bitch," she muttered at it, as much as at the situation. She leaned against the remnants of a pillar and looked around shaking her head.

Kaidan keyed off his mic as he walked over to her. "What is it?" his eyes were sweeping the room as if he might have missed something.

She tapped her wrist. "Nothing. Just wish we'd gotten here sooner."

"It wouldn't have mattered, Shepard. The colonists said the geth have been here for quite some time."

"Yeah, but why?"

He holstered his pistol and rested his hands on his hips, eyes sweeping over the geth platform at her feet as if it might sit up and tell them. "Your guess is as good as mine. But I have a sneaking suspicion the geth aren't the only thing we have to worry about."

"I know," she said holstering her weapon. The commander crouched down and studied the geth on the ground between them. "None of the intel I got on this planet from the Alliance or from Saren's files tells me anything useful or pertinent. Even these people. They should know something. And I think they do. But they aren't helping us at all. There is something really out of whack here, besides Saren and his synthetic cronies."

His eyes were on her, but only for a moment as she looked up at him. "So, you noticed it, too?" He shifted uncomfortably. "Something here feels really off, Commander."

"We gonna kill something or sit here jabbering?" Wrex called from the doorway.

Nyx nodded at the krogan, tossing aside the little piece of geth armor she had been inspecting. Looking at the lieutenant as she stood, she replied to his insinuation. "You're right. And we need to figure it out most ricky tick[i]. Preferably before it bites us in the ass. Let's move!" The last two words resounded off the walls as she tapped her radio back open.

Their resumed movement elicited a gleeful grin and chuckle from Wrex who chambered another round into his shotgun. There were several things that Shepard had come to appreciate about her krogan crewmate, but the thing she loved, was the laugh--the mischievously playful sound that was mixed with just enough sinister to make just about anyone unnerved. If you were on his side, the distress was minuscule and rather served to as stimulating motivation; it might even make one a little giddy. If you were the one in his sights, however, she was sure the sound had made more than a few people cringe or worse.

Moving through the lower tunnels, Shepard's team made relatively short work of the geth encamped there as well. The appearance of a man who had been part of the colony and clearly displayed some interesting signs of psychosis or something akin to it, set them all a little on edge. Wrex displayed his typical reaction, suggesting they just shoot the guy, but Nyx disagreed. He was just another sign of what kept Shepard on edge.

Clearing of the tunnels allowed the team a chance to address the dire situation that Fai Dan described the colonists to be in, though strangely he would only consider solutions that allowed his people to remain where they were. The threesome located and restarted the water pumps, cleared out a threatening alpha varren, and even found a power cell that fit the specs Alenko got from an engineer at Zhu's Hope for a generator that was failing. Despite the growing anxiety Shepard felt, she could not help but be pleased that their excursion managed to help improve the colonists situation in the meantime, since the leader refused to allow evacuation of the people there.

 

**/2/**

Ever since Trebin, Williams caught hell for the armor change, but there had been no chance to switch it out as yet, much to the lieutenant's chagrin. Alenko had never really been conscious of quite how armor fit before and by the time they reached Feros he was again reminded of just how form fitting it could be on everyone, especially Shepard. Regardless he still considered the make of the Ursa set completely wrong for the battlefield, even if it was little more than a selfish observation. The coloring, the trim, the shape all gave the utilitarian items a sex appeal he never could have guessed they could have, and quickly found himself wishing they did not have. He knew it was not entirely the armor that distracted the hell out of him. _Even from the back, especially from the back,_ he thought. Even as he reverted to the tactic he had chosen on Trebin and stared at the ceiling, trying to avert his eyes, he could still see it-- the seams that just followed all the right curves and served to remind him that Shepard was not just a soldier but also a well-built, attractive woman beneath the guns, armor, and menacing capacity for destruction.

He swallowed at the lump in his throat, shaking his head trying to wipe the image from his mind, but it had not worked yet. He shifted, uncomfortable with his continued distraction, then suddenly decided to try another route. "What do you think is going on here, Commander? I mean you offer to get his people out of the line of fire and Fai Dan declines with some talk about opportunity for growth. And then there's the rest of them. 'I can't talk about that… Talk to Fai Dan. He's our leader.' It's off, right?"

"That's putting it lightly, Lieutenant." She said as she sped across the skyway at an almost sickening pace. Wrex was chortling as he fired at geth, and would growl lightly when Shepard rammed the ones he missed with the vehicle. "Any ideas?"

"I don't know, but I don't like this. We're walking blind into something big. I can feel it," Alenko deduced.

"Damn, did you see that Juggernaut fly? Nice hit, Shepard. Thousand credits say you can't do it again." Wrex grinned as he fired at the distant synthetic platforms.

Kaidan laughed. "I'll take that action."

"No faith. I'm gonna enjoy taking your money, boys." Shepard replied as she gunned the engine.

Their bet carried onto the _Normandy_ and Joker roared victoriously over the radio as the commander repeated the maneuver and sent another massive geth platform launching over the Mako and to its skidding death.

"Damnit, Joker." Williams replied with a scowl.

"Hey, I have great faith in Shepard's ability to drive badly. Her ramming things with the Mako is an inevitable fact of life."

"Joker, you do remember that I have a new pistol that could still use some breaking in?" Shepard reminded

He stammered for a moment not realizing his line had still been open. "But you wouldn't shoot a man on crutches would you?"

She grinned at her companions in the Mako. "I've never seen you on crutches, Moreau."

"Hell yeah, Commander. You get him," Williams cheered from the _Normandy's_ co-pilot's seat.

"This from the person that dressed me like I was going to Chora's Den for a job interview," the commander quipped.

"Who's laughing now?" Joker chimed.

"Cut the chatter," Alenko said authoritatively. "I'm picking something up. There must be more people out here."

"More colonists? Or ExoGeni's people? Or someone else?" Shepard asked, immediately regaining her command persona.

"Can't tell. It's rough at best, but it doesn't seem military," the lieutenant observed.

"Does it really matter?" Wrex interjected. "The geth are the priority."

Shepard cast a sidelong glance at him. "They might know something," she said first, hoping to appeal to his better nature. But intelligence did not really seem to be a high priority for the krogan. Then she disclosed her own reason. "They might need help." She turned her gaze back toward the skyway as Wrex silently picked off a group of geth blocking another gate.

 

**/3/**

Standing under the spray, Shepard closed her eyes and let the water just pour over her. The hot water seemed to be the only thing that eased the throbbing in her head.

Feros. Nothing prepared her for anything they came across there. ExoGeni experimenting on colonists and exposing them to unknown life forms, geth crawling all over the area, then there was the Thorian. Shepard did not know what it was, but there was no way she could, in good conscience, not destroy something that was infecting people's minds, enslaving. It might not have that effect on every species, but it had enthralled the people of Zhu's Hope and placed them in great risk. That was enough for her.

The look in Fai Dan's eyes, the struggle for control over his own mind, his own body. It stayed with her, even once they were back on the ship. Shepard had shot a lot of people in her career, and a fair amount of them had been in one-on-one standoff situations. More than a few times, she had witnessed people take their own lives. Despite that, the look in that man's eyes, from the first stumbling steps he took, or was forced to take, toward her to the point when his pistol pressed to his temple, the mix of terror and resolve she saw there were the likes of which she doubted she would ever see again. The struggle in his voice and the way he fought his own body. Nyx had felt herself startle again in the shower, just remembering the shot.

Then there was the asari, Shiala, an acolyte of Benezia traded for something she called the cipher. Hell, Shepard still was not even sure what it was, even though it was in her head. The commando said this cipher was the key to understanding the disjointed images of the Eden Prime Beacon, which Saren also needed to locate the conduit. The commander could not help but wonder if the turian had better luck with the brain touching thing than the human experienced.

Though it was not really a surprise to the commander, Shiala also told the squad of Saren's knowledge of Shepard's mission. The officer assumed he knew she was after him. However, it was a little surprising to learn that Arterius knew that she was aware of the conduit. Learning that he was doing everything possible to stop her was actually something the human expected.

The entire mission on Feros felt a little surreal. Concluding it with Shiala's submitting herself to the Spectre's judgment without a fight. Her offer to stay and assist the colony seemed commendable, and the commander took the asari at her word. Then there was that damn meld.

Shepard closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cool metal wall as the hot water rolled down her back. It was all still too clear in her head.

Shiala stepped toward the marine and took one of Shepard's hands. Quickly and deftly the asari removed the gauntlet and clasped their hands tightly. The asari placed her other hand on the side of Shepard's neck, just below her ear. The tone of her voice even and calm, she locked eyes with the commander. "Let go of your physical shell. Reach out and grasp the threads that bind us, one to another. Every action sends ripples across the galaxy. Every idea must touch another mind to live. Each emotion must mark another's spirit. We are all connected. Every living being united in a single, glorious existence. Open yourself to the universe..." Shiala closed her eyes and bowed her head for a moment. "Embrace eternity," she added as her head rose and her eyes reopened, now completely black.

The sparking jolt had taken Nyx by surprise. Even the memory of it made Shepard dizzy enough to lean more fully against the wall as the quick swirling wave of nausea threatened again. Rolling her forehead back and forth again the cool surface, she watched streams of water pour from the ends of her hair. The little speech the asari gave sounded like something from one of her philosophy classes, everything is connected, everything touches something else; like the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a tsunami.

The first melding with Liara had not affected the officer, practically at all. _Perhaps it has more to do with the cipher_ , she thought as she felt her pulse seem to tighten her skull with every beat of her heart. Admittedly the melding on Feros itself had not been particularly painful, per se, it was not a comfortable sensation having something shoehorned into her brain. But when Shiala released Nyx, the officer had felt a little lightheaded and dizzy afterward.

Recalling the concern of the krogan and the lieutenant made her cringe; Shepard knew neither of them thought her choice was all that sound. Again it came down to a quick field weighing of the risk versus the payoff, and Shepard needed to know what Saren knew. In some ways, the officer was more than aware that her judgment was being tainted by desperation on this mission, part of her was hoping to regain some semblance of balance now that they had an idea where he was headed.

The _Normandy_ remained in orbit around Feros, awaiting the arrival of Alliance relief vessels. The commander had no intention of leaving Zhu's Hope to the whims of ExoGeni or the geth, so they stayed in the area and shared as much of their supplies with the colonists as they could. Command, to say the least, was displeased with what Shepard had gleaned. The Council were peeved with the fate of the Thorian, which the turian counselor assumed was due to its threatening a human colony. _Guess he missed the part in the report about the enthralled salarian. Given it was only one member of that species, but that was not the point._

Shepard doubted anyone could study it without becoming its thrall. _The Thorian's mind control was not limited to humans, which made it a danger to multiple species_ , which is how she had worded it in her official reports. The Alliance agreed though grieved the chance to study samples. But the Council concerned themselves with her destruction of an ancient species heretofore unknown to them.

"Politics," she groaned and cut off the water.

**/4/**

Williams walked toward the commander's quarters and was surprised when the door opened unprompted. Then she saw her CO. "Shepard!" she called and rushed over. When she rounded the table the commander was looking up at her, kind of. The blonde leaned up and turned her face toward the other marine but Nyx's eyes were still closed

Shepard held a single finger to her lips, "Shh," she replied softly.

Ashley crouched down near the officer as Nyx relaxed again. "You doing all right there, Skipper?"

"Yep," Shepard muttered after a long pause. "Just needed a moment."

"On the floor?"

Shepard nodded slowly.

Williams watched her carefully as they spoke. "Why the floor?"

"The hum," Shepard said very quietly.

"Come again."

"The drive core. It hums. When I lay on the floor, I can feel it in my skull." Her eyes were still closed, but she lolled her head toward the chief. "And don't look at me like I'm crazy, Ash."

"I wasn't, ma'am," she replied with a smile, knowing that the thought had crossed her mind.

"Mmhmm." Shepard turned her face back to the ceiling. "I would be, so I know you are." Nyx was silent for a few breaths. "Why'd you come by, Chief?"

"Nothing important," Ashley replied. "We can talk some other time. You know. When you're not … humming."

The commander smirked and chuckled weakly. "Thanks, Chief."

Williams shook her head as she walked across the crew deck to the elevator. She had no idea what her CO was doing on the floor, but then she was neither a biotic nor had she been mind probed by two asari in the last twenty hours to put all the pieces that beacon shoved into her brain in some order. Suddenly, thinking about it that way, Williams thought there was a high likelihood she might be laying on the floor too, or, more likely, bashing her forehead into it.

Ashley tore down and cleaned the weapons the team took planet-side. Each member had already done it, but she usually did it a second time; though she left Wrex's shotgun alone. You could touch any other piece of his gear to adjust, repair, or mod it, but the one time anyone moved to do anything to that Hurricane Wrex got real quiet and extra grumbly. Williams was almost certain his eyes had even managed to go a darker more ominous shade of red, but that could just have been her imagination.

After she finished that chore she noticed her terminal blinking. The smile bloomed unbidden with the warm thought of home and her sisters. She could not help but giggle as they each jostled one another for screen time. It was almost as bad as trying to get a space on the couch for movie night. Someone always wound up pouting on the floor with popcorn in their hair, she remembered, the thought of it making her feel light and untroubled for a moment.

"Got a minute Chief?" Shepard asked quietly over her shoulder.

"Sure thing," Ashley replied with a start. Before she could turn and pause the video mail, one of her sisters made an off-the-cuff comment about lieutenant Alenko that caused Williams to blush profusely. The chief turned quickly and stopped the video before they might say anything else that could make her want to crawl under the table.

Shepard did not say anything initially, nor could the chief get a bead on her.

"Sorry about that, sometimes they run on at the mouth."

"No. Not at all. So… The lieutenant, huh?" Shepard asked with a sly smile.

Ashley shrugged it off and informed the commander that, according to the rumor mill Alenko already had his heart beset by someone. Williams was taken aback by the look that darkened the CO's eyes. _Is she disappointed? No. Surely she has to_ _know. She has to see it._

"Umm. What'd you come to see me about earlier?" Shepard asked, groping for a topic change.

Ashley had gone to see Nyx to see how she was faring with the brain poking. But somehow Gunnery Chief Williams found herself talking to the commander about her sisters and growing up in a house full of girls. The officer took it all in stride, actually seeming interested in the stories about the craziness. It was one of the things that surprised Ash most. Shepard actually knew her people, even the ones outside of the squad.

Williams watched Shepard make her way toward Wrex and wondered about the question about Alenko. _Shepard sees_ everything _, even with her eyes closed_. The thought brought a chuckle into her throat. _She has to see that the L-T is totally into her._ Williams had noticed his attention and interest. Hell, she had even noticed a few unguarded looks that Shepard cast on Alenko, though that was a little less obvious. The commander seemed to be a little better at masking things than the lieutenant, which Williams chalked up to her field work and her experience dealing with aliens and line officers.

Then she thought for a moment about the newest rumors circulating the ship, about the commander and Dr. T'Soni. _Maybe her attention is just too focused on everything else to notice_. Williams certainly hated to give any weight to the next thought that popped up because she knew full well that Shepard was not oblivious.

 

**/5/**

The _Normandy_ transferred a wealth of supplies, namely food and medical rations, over to the Zhu's Hope colony on Feros, which housed both the colonists and the survivors of the geth attack on the ExoGeni headquarters there. She had remained docked there in case the geth returned. Shepard also wanted to ensure that the Alliance reached those people first; Nyx was not willing to chance the corporation swooping in and cleaning up the site.

There was no stemming the tide of incoming requests either, it seemed. It made the commander wonder if her old team was still as busy as they had been before she left, or if the requests that kept her hopping for the previous two years just took a different route and came to her new squad instead. Regardless, the commander could not be more pleased with the man who stepped into her temporary station as executive officer. He handled the requests with an efficiency Nyx admired. Beyond that, the pair had moved beyond the need for daily briefings; Pressly merely kept a shared itinerary of sorts up-to-date.

According to executive officer, he and Liara designed it while Tali'Zorah programmed it for them. Shepard had to admit the handiness of being able to pull up the briefings and intelligence reports on any of the prioritized items on a whim was a nice touch. He added to it as needed and shifted things with ease to address the ship's needs as well as Fleet's demands. There was also the added bonus of seeing him working quite so well with all of the crew.

Trotting down the stairs from the bridge, her plan was clear. The ship's priority switched after Feros. The facility there pointed her toward the Maroon Sea with the sneaking suspicion that ExoGeni was possibly playing out a similar experiment on another group of colonists. It did not dawn on her precisely how much time she had spent locked away with reports and briefings after Feros until she let her eyes wonder the crew deck on the way back to her quarters.

Kaidan stood near the door of medical talking to Garrus, when his attention turned her way her breathing felt suddenly shallow. She continued her retreat with renewed inspiration, as that little voice reprimanded her reaction. Her interior voice had been getting even more scathing of late for allowing herself to let down her guard around him. It kept reminding her about those oaths and responsibilities she took on when she put on the uniform, and there was a part of her that wanted to completely ignore it. But she couldn't, especially now, or so she reminded herself all too often.

Her pace quickened, but she was not destined to make an escape into her cabin. While part of her reclusive behavior could be blamed on the mission, it was not the only reason she pulled back into herself and tucked away with books and work. Nyx stopped trusting herself a little, knowing she was closing in on crossing a very delicate line when it came to the staff lieutenant. Rather than face suspicion for stepping back from one particular member of the crew, she withdrew entirely, then the reason would not be him. There were even a handful of moments where she had almost convinced herself of that possibility.

"Commander!" Kaidan's footfalls followed his voice as he crossed the deck at a trot. "You looked a little peaked after the cipher thing and the meld with Liara the other day. You feeling okay?"

"Little headache. But then guess that's what I get for letting people poke around in my brain," she replied, hoping she sounded convincingly aloof.

"Did the cipher help?"

She looked away shaking her head. "I have no idea really. It still all seems a jumble of nothing certain. Just the same images of darkness and death in a new order. While it seems less random, a part of me hoped it might make the nightmares a little less vibrant."

He nodded knowingly. "No joy?"

"Not a drop," she replied, leaning her shoulder against the wall. "Guess it is just one more to add to the mix, you know?"

"Don't we all. I'm pretty sure the Thorian will pop up in mine in the future."

"Oh, don't remind me," she laughed gruffly with a wince.

Kaidan leaned against the edge of the structural wall, arms folded over his chest, wearing a distracting smile that made her wish she had sprinted for her quarters.

"That was certainly something else."

He looked at her for a long moment; Shepard, certain he sought a reply of some kind, chose not to make one.  

"Have they been bad of late? The nightmares?" he asked quite casually, though his voice lowered a few steps.

"Depends."

"On?"

"I wish I knew. Some nights are fine. Others … Well, on those nights I probably couldn't sleep if I was drugged. The beacon hasn't really made it any better or worse."

With that admission she noticed the change in his face as he nodded. "Guess that's something that comes with the territory," he said more softly.

"It does seem to be a common affliction."

"Shepard!" Ashley's voice caused them both straighten, which prompted the commander to feel a little guilty.

"Yeah, Chief."

"X-O, has something for you."

"Excuse me, Lieutenant."

"Ma'am," he replied with a nod.

Shepard noticed the little trace of a smile on Williams' face as she passed the soldier. It made the commander cringe. In that instant the decision seemed completely apparent, she needed to quell whatever was happening in her head. Nyx was being too open and free with Alenko even though that was never the intention, it started like it did with any other crew member then the conversation just seemed to find its own way elsewhere. Even though she made a concerted effort to talk to all of her squad, all of the crew--get to know them, ensure they were acclimating well--she knew that her personal interest skewed things with the staff lieutenant. It gave conversations with Alenko a different bent and she allowed them to take a more personal direction.

Beyond just acting foolishly, her misstep now seemed wholly obvious to others, if Shepard read Williams' reaction correctly. Her reputation was not her concern. She could battle her way out from just about any personal take on her, and had. Wearing the uniform, earning her N7 tab, none of it mattered really when people saw her. So being labeled a flirt made little difference in her own outlook, but it was unfair of her to place him in that type of position.

Shepard was concerned that what had started as just getting to know her crewmen was taking on something else with Alenko, at least for her. She had a good crew; her squad gelled nicely and worked well together. She preferred not to put any of them at risk or lose any of them if it was in her power to do so. And if she continued along this line, Nyx felt more than certain command would step in.

By the time she reached the cockpit, Shepard finally resolved just to try and lock it down. _You're a marine, you can do this_ , she told herself as Pressly leaned over Joker's shoulder.

"You gentlemen have something for me?" the commander asked in way of greeting.

"Emergency transmission forwarded through Command from a freighter in the vicinity. Generic, automated, no response. It's another ExoGeni facility, Commander," Pressly revealed the last detail rather stoically.

"Get us there, yesterday, Joker." Shepard set her hand on the XO's shoulder and guided him down the bridge. "Where? And what do we know?"

"Vostok System in the Maroon Sea. Not much. Alliance has no details on this place."

Shepard stopped cold. "You mean to tell me Intel has nothing on this?"

"Nothing they are giving us, ma'am."

"Son of a--." Shepard bit her tongue, remembering she was not in the field but on the bridge. With her hands pressed tightly on her hips, her mind raced. "All right. What do we know about ExoGeni?"

"Next to nothing. Interstellar company that specializes in planetary colonization and exploration. They mostly make their profit through resource rights."

"What was it that researcher on Feros said? The company's genius at repurposing everything?"

Pressly shrugged at her. "We can check their extranet site?"

The commander stared at him for a moment and when he smiled slightly, she completely lost it. When the initial shock of it was over, she nodded and agreed, "Hell yeah. I guess if that's what we've got let's do it. We can also see if there isn't some way to compel a little forthcoming out of these people."

 

**/6/**

Joker was lurking when the whispering started. There were a handful of men and women on the boat that could start the rumor mill turning and Alenko was among the prime candidates, but then so were Shepard and most of the rest of the combat squad she pieced together. When the staff lieutenant exited the medbay a few minutes later the conglomeration of enlisted females hushed and several watched him pour a cup of coffee and walk past them without any acknowledgement at all. Then the hissing of hushed tones began again.

The pilot went overlooked by them, as he did by most on the vessel. He couldn't help but chuckle at the latest set of rumors swirling about the biotic with the sweet caramel eyes, amazing hair, and an ass you could bounce a quarter off of, according to the consensus. When the topic turned toward, the types of evaluations they would personally like to put his friend through, Joker stood, scraping his chair loudly across the deck and walked off. The two yeoman that Moreau recognized from the bridge blushed furiously when he glanced over at them.

Rounding the corner, he shook his head. He tapped the console and slipped into the observation area with a laugh. "I thought this was Shepard's hideout?" Joker asked, looking around the quiet space. He could see why they both liked it. Quiet, dark, nice view, and almost no one ever seemed to remember it was there.

"With promotion, came an office. So I guess you could say I confiscated it." Kaidan's laugh was strained and the tightness in his face suggested the officer might not be hiding out just to avoid the type of display Joker just witnessed.

"Just tell me you're not sitting in her sulking about the newest rumors going around right now?" The pilot slid into the chair opposite his friend.

"What rumors?" Kaidan asked. He did not look pleased.

Joker's grin was wide and held a playful malevolence. "You really want to know?"

"Probably not, but tell me anyway."

"It seems that some of the crew think you are an azure connoisseur."

"I don't even want to know what that is, do I?" Kaidan replied, rubbing at his forehead.

Joker howled. "No. You really don't. But I'm sure you can guess if you thought hard about it."

Alenko winced.

"Suffice to say the crew seems to think you are quite… active. I mean first it was Williams, but she left you for Garrus. Then Tali--not even gonna touch the logistics on that one. And now the archaeologist. You're about to run out of eligible women, Alenko.  But, damn, the stamina you must have."

Kaidan looked embarrassed and even more uncomfortable. "Why the hell would they think that? I barely talk to the woman."

"There is _all_ that time you spend in medical. And after that heated little discussion in the Mako that boiled over into the cargo hold, you and the good doctor have tongues a-waggin'," Joker advised with a sly glance.

Kaidan just shook his head. "People really need to find better things to do with their time."

"Not much else to do on a cruising ship in your downtime, other than watch people. You know that as well as I do. You're just irked because you happen to be one of the ones people are ogling."

The staff lieutenant just stared at his hands disinterestedly.

"I think it’s the hair. That has to be it. No other real reason all the females would be so attentive."

"Excuse me." The biotic glanced back up at Moreau.

"Either that or it’s the eyes. Maybe the ass."

"Joker."

Jeff laughed and grinned. "Man, lighten up. I don't think you're putting the moves on Williams, Tali, or the asari."

"Thank you," Kaidan agreed, leaning forward.

"I'm fairly certain your interests lie a little closer to home. So, my money's on Shepard."

The sharp look did not go unnoticed, but Joker chose ignore it. He leaned forward, offering his explanation while his friend stared daggers at him.

"See, for the life of me, I could not figure out why she still got under your skin. Then there was that armor. Goddamn, armor is not supposed to look like that." Joker shook his head in appreciation of the memory, shaking his finger at Alenko.

"No. No, it is not," Alenko agreed with a wily little grin of his own.

"Yeah, and it broke your cool austere exterior there, man."

The return of the sharp glance made Moreau laugh while confirming his suspicions.

"I can't believe I didn't see it earlier," Joker chided. "I must be slipping."

"Joker," Kaidan cautioned.

"Come on, you know me. I'm all about discretion."

Kaidan's glare was a mixture of darkness and lightning.

"When it counts," the flight lieutenant added, leaning back in his chair smoothly.

The pilot knew his friend would likely prefer that rumor not start back up, true or not. Though it had not really died down all that much, rather it had fallen out of rotation in favor of a few more interesting ones about the commander. According to scuttlebutt, she was almost as busy as Alenko, but the rumors were no longer about the two of them undressing one another with their minds, though that one still cropped up once and a while.

"Just keep it to yourself." Alenko looked out the window. "Not that it matters anyway," he mumbled.

 _There it is_. Joker knew, if it was true, Alenko would eventually spill. Joker knew his friend liked to play things close to the cuff. He was not big on grand gestures or putting things out there, at all, let alone too soon. But eventually Kaidan always told Jeff what was going on, though usually such revelations were piecemeal and incremental. 

"I don't know. Could be worth a look."

Kaidan leaned forward and rested his forehead in his hands. "Yeah, maybe. But is a look worth my career. I lost my spot once for …"--the lieutenant looked up at the pilot--"for something that … well, for nothing. Am I willing to put my career on the line? Just to take a look?"

The pilot had no answer, and he knew Alenko did not either. Joker adjusted his hat and leaned his elbows on the table, pressing his steepled fingertips to his lips. "Guess that's the million credit question. What's it worth?"

The two of them considered the question in silence for a while. Before Joker lowered his hands and cocked an eyebrow at the biotic. "So, what are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing to do. Regs are clear cut," Kaidan relented.

"For an officer, yeah. For a Spectre--"

"Shepard's Alliance," Alenko opined. "Doesn't matter what else. That comes first."

Alenko almost sounded disappointed, with a quick glance at his face, Joker was certain Kaidan was.

"Damnit," the staff lieutenant muttered as he stood. "I just can't get it out of my head."

"What?"

The eyes that made most of the females on the ship swoon were turned sharply on the pilot for a long moment. Jeff knew Alenko was trying to decide if he was going to tell Moreau anything more. And Joker was not surprised, when his friend merely said, "Nothing," and turned back to the window.

Jeff pushed himself away from the table and stood. "Well, I better get up top before Pressly sends out a search party. You know where to find me if you change your mind."

"Yep."

His knee was feeling a little tight and he hobbled just a little more than usual. As he climbed the stairs, the pilot considered the conversation with his friend. It did not go quite how he expected. Joker merely intended to make his friend laugh at the foolishness that seemed to permeate downtime on a cruising ship. The last thing he expected was to actually touch on something.

 _Hell. Maybe Kaidan should just take the chance_.

A part of him thought Alenko needed to step up and take a shot in the dark at least once. Like most guys in the service, they both dated recreationally, usually when they were on leave or the rare shore assignment. But neither of them had been distracted by anyone of interest in too long to really admit out loud, Joker realized when he considered it. A little more than a year back, Joker had let himself get all wrapped up in this Alliance nurse with a weak spot for him, but the pity made it run cold fast. For Alenko, it had been three years since he received an ultimatum and chose his career over the little girl from Tokyo with white-picket-fence dreams.

 

**/7/**

The commander stalked across the bay and placed the weapons onto the table with a little more force than usual. Tali and Garrus followed her, doing the same, but much more gingerly. The team habitually viewed the missions through their squad mates armor systems, so they all knew what had happened on Nodacrux.

Marching to the elevator, alone Shepard made her way to the bridge. A quick and quiet chat with Pressly and the commanding officer of the _Normandy_ was on the move again. Her footsteps were a little clumsier than usual, a little more noticeable as she approached the cockpit, but she took a small measure of comfort in the sound of movement.

"Joker," she began, eyes scanning the panels in front of the pilot. "Need you to put us back on course for Chasca."

"Aye aye."

The response he gave her said a lot about the receptiveness of her crew. Usually the _Normandy's_ pilot was the comic relief, the quick witted, sharp tongued man with the quip in his pocket. He was also smart enough to know when Shepard would let that sort of thing slide and when the commander would pull rank. This definitely felt like one of those moments when he could wind up with a size eight boot on his throat. Petite as she might be, no one on the _Normandy_ was stupid enough to taunt their resident caged lion when she was stalking.

"More ExoGeni?" he asked in a carefully measured tone.

"Yep."

"Still nothing more than the official public information on them?"

Shepard knew what he was trying to do. She rather appreciated the consideration, but this was not the moment. There was a sense of the overwhelming surrounding her. The visions still felt unclear and jumbled, but that did not stop them from plaguing her. Ilos, wherever the hell that was, seemed like some mythological Neverland with a dark streak tainted by the destruction and death that clung to her mind. They still did not even know what the conduit was or what it might be, or even why Saren was so hell-bent on finding it.

Then adding in things like, Feros and ExoGeni and some of the other atrocities her team had happened across it seemed that the galaxy decided to suddenly veer off on her. She knew pirates and raiders, she had even come across experiments gone astray, and people with abnormal takes how to serve your fellow sentient beings. _But this…_ This seemed out of proportion to the usual sorts of missions she led, this was a different level of disturbing.

"No. And not surprisingly, they aren't responding to my _personal_ requests either. I doubted they would hand over anything willingly, even if requested by a Spectre. But it is not like I have the time or the desire to kick in the front door and ruffle their feathers in person."

"Hell, if you did that I might have to dub some of the armor cam footage and post it on the extranet."

"And I might just let you," Shepard replied.

Joker's smile suggested she might not be wearing quite as dour an expression as she thought she was. "Can't the Council intervene? Send some bean counters over there to dig up what you need?"

"They could."

He read her tone. The pilot leaned back, sinking against his chair just a little. The both understood the undertone of it. _The Council could get the information I need. They could send C-Sec officers into the offices to enforce a Spectre's request. But they won't. Because it's me. Because it's Saren._ She did not know which of them was the biggest hang up--the defrocked former golden turian of the Council or the gung ho pint-sized human that jumped down his throat. In the end, none of that mattered.

The intercom ended her reverie. "Commander, I've got Hackett on the comm link for you."

It surprised her that the XO had been able to make that connection quite so quickly. It meant the admiral was either waiting for her report, or the commander happened to be lucky. She neither cared nor speculated which got her nearly instant access to the head of Fifth Fleet.

"Thanks, Pressly. Let me know when we hit the Matano system, Joker."

"Get some rest, Shepard," Joker replied to her poor salutation.

She made no response other than her retreating footsteps. From the reports they found on Feros, she had a sinking feeling about just what was waiting for them a system away, and it was not a trip planet side that she was looking forward to.

When she entered the comm room, Nyx went straight to the panel and keyed it up. "Good morning, Admiral."

"Little early for that Shepard."

She glanced at her wrist, shaking her head slightly; there was something about space that always made her lose track of the cycle. It had been years since Shepard ran anything akin to a shift; she had been there whenever the call came in for so long that time just slipped past her every now and again. "Sorry about that. It's been an interesting afternoon. That beacon in Vostok was an ExoGeni facility. They were experimenting on the people that signed on as colonists, sir."

Shepard tried to quell the acid in her tone, but she could still hear it. Hackett groaned; she knew that particular groan. Her report to the Alliance on Feros, like her draft to the Council, suggested investigation into the company's activities and associations. But her response from the Alliance mirrored that of the Council, there was not enough evidence to support such treatment of an interstellar company with a spotless reputation until now. While the commander waved her Spectre flag at the corporation and pushed hard to have the Citadel back her requests, she had been much less adamant with the Alliance. Spectre or not, chain of command still held on that side of the fence, there she could only make suggestions and inferences.

"What did you find?"

"The head of the research project. When I tried to take her into custody, she and the security opened fire on my team. My team came out all right. But we returned fire. Pulled everything we could off the systems, but they had wiped them pretty clean, sir. Seems to be ExoGeni's standard operating procedure whenever something goes awry."

"Why were they using a generic distress signal?"

Shepard's hands tightened behind her back. "Supposed to be a signal to their higher ups. Let them know something was wrong without going into the details. But their boss either didn't get the message or ignored it. Either way, Dr. Ross tried to buy us off. Then it went south."

"What did they have down there?"

"From the looks of it, they brought in spores from the Thorian we came across on Feros. Exposed the colonists, they were trying to domesticate the thralls. Turn them into… I don't know what they were aiming for. And if this facility is any indication, then I'm certain we'll find much of the same on Chasca. These people are playing with things they need not toy with. They are exposing colonists to dangerous alien life forms and using them for experimentation without consent."

Shepard bit her lip for a second then threw caution to the wind. "I need to know the location of their facilities," she damanded. "I need to know what planets they have sent teams to. We can't just stand here--"

"Commander."

Straightening, Nyx looked past the projected image of the head of Fifth Fleet. Honestly surprised, he let her get that far in her little diatribe, she now stood silently awaiting his response. There was no reprimand, she and Hackett worked well together. They had a history. He was a little freer with her and she with him, than most flag officers. Shepard always chalked that up to his field experience, and the fact that he had worked his way up the ranks from the bottom, literally. Mustangs always gave Shepard a longer leash, she noticed over the years.

"You're right. I just don't know what good it will do. I'll make some calls."

"Just a heads up, sir. I already asked them to play nice, officially, as a representative of the Council. So they might be a little wary."

Hackett nodded. "Noted. But I wasn't planning on calling _them_. Good work, Shepard."

"Thank you, sir."

It felt nice to have someone back her up. The commander's sensation of being on the outside of things again had resurfaced with the Council's responses after Feros. The Alliance was jumping her crew all over the known galaxy, while she chased Saren in a race to parts unknown, or at least long forgotten. The little reminder that there were people she could count on beyond her squad and her crew was something Shepard did not realize she needed until she got it. It would not make what was coming any easier, but there was comfort in the knowledge that she was not out there all on her own.

 

 

 

 

[i]Most Ricky Tick: military term/slang for immediately, linked commonly to Marines. Had a friend, retired US Marine, who always said it.


	16. Card Sharks & Guinea Pigs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Down time is a given in interstellar travel, and is typically a blessing. After losing nearly a week's pay to Gunnery Chief William's unnatural luck at all variant of poker. Shepard opts to spend some of their travel time to Chasca focusing on the suggestions about focusing her biotics, to some interesting results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to all the wonderful reviewers/commenters. Your thoughts, enjoyment, and consideration mean the world to me. Hope this piece continues to entertain. Also thanks again to the wonderful ladies who read for me: Chy and LadyAmes.

**16 Card Sharks & Guinea Pigs**

**/1/**

The black sea of space was vast, even with the technologies that the different races developed from their own studies and Prothean discoveries. The travel between systems still sometimes took days though relays reduced travel between hospitable clusters to mere moments. It provided very necessary down time for her squad, so Shepard did not mind it all that much. Spend a day or two groundside playing with the ugly dark nasties the galaxy had to offer, of various species, and a few days travel time seemed like a mini-vacation, except that the _Normandy_ currently edged toward the line of low on supplies.

Shepard knew Pressly's estimates were always more than two weeks over, in case of emergencies. She also knew that those two weeks would make Seafood Surprise night feel like a five-star meal. The far end of rations on a deployment could get sketchy, she noted as she wrinkled her nose at the eggs she knew were powdered--even the frozen bagged ones had been used already. Grabbing two pieces of toast she stuffed a little foil baggy with _FRUIT_ printed on it into the pocket on her thigh before filling her coffee mug.

 _Yeah, after Matano, a resupply might be in order_ , she thought, recalling her earlier conversation with Pressly. _With such tempting items as this on the menu, I'm surprised I haven't gotten word of someone gnawing on the furniture, or worse._ The commander, personally, was used to much worse rations, but then she had also spent three weeks living in a hole she dug herself on a low gravity moon. While rations that did not come in tube were top drawer for her, most of the crew lacked her experience with the diverse offerings of the Alliances dietary specialists; though she knew Tali and Garrus were both pared down to that point.

"Hey, C-O, come join us," Crosby called with a large wave of his arm. "You play?"

Shepard looked at the table and opted to take a chance. If nothing else, it was an opportunity to get lost in something and not think too much. Though Shepard lacked much skill at cards on the whole, five-card draw was decidedly her bane. When Private Nunez suggested a switch to Skyllian Five, the commander held out an inkling of hope that she might not go down by an entire week's pay.

Ashley Williams' laugh was bright and melodic, and given the right inspiration it could be peppered with just a hint of sinister, regardless it was also infectious. Shepard smiled widely as she slapped the cards down on the table dejectedly.

"What the hell? You are some kind of card shark aren't you, Williams?" The commander leaned back in her chair, the smirk and the light tone in her voice left no doubt that she was merely chiding the chief.

"Nah, not me. I'm all sweetness and light, Skipper."

The entire table and several of the spectators choked on laughter.

"I used to be good at this game. Paid my way through leave once on my teammates' dimes."

"What happened?" the chief asked dead pan as she shuffled the deck.

Nyx shook her head and smiled.

"It's your tell, Shepard," Ashley replied in an effort to give her CO some slack. "Gives you away every time."

"Lies! I have the straightest face in this room."

The chief shared a quick glance with the staff lieutenant across the table from her. "It's not your face," Williams stated.

"You can see it in the eyes," Alenko clarified. He and Williams were running about even in the number of hands they had won.

Ashley nodded profusely in agreement.

"You're still a shark," Shepard assured the young soldier as she stood. "Nicely done, Chief, but I'm out before you take my sock money."

"You have _sock_ money, Shepard?" Crosby asked wryly.

"Only thing that's not standard issue," the Nyx replied. She propped her foot up on the railing that led toward the area that held the sleeping pods. "Wanna see?"

Several heads nodded yes, but even so Shepard did not wait for an answer. She loosened her boot then tugged her fatigues up a few inches to show off one of her favorite pairs--the ones with brightly colored vertical stripes running up her calf.

"Son of a bitch," Ashley replied, shielding her eyes. "Put those away."

The commander smirked and moved her hand to her hip, as if reaching for the sidearm she was not carrying. "You can take a woman's money, Chief, but never fuck with her socks."

"My mistake, ma'am," Williams giggled.

The two women grinned widely at one another as Joker slipped into the CO's vacant seat at the table. "Deal me in."

Shepard readjusted her uniform and crossed to her locker. Eying the box for a moment, Nyx opted to give the asari ring thing another go. She was not entirely sure she was doing it right, but with a little downtime ahead of them she figured she could afford an hour or so of at least giving it another try. She knew her teammates were dead on about the control issue, Shepard had heard it more than enough times in her career. And with the added pressure of being a Spectre, the commander thought perhaps it was time to actually do something about it other than smile and nod. So she grabbed the largest silver ring out of the box and found an out of the way spot where she could watch Williams reap credits off some of the rest of the crew.

 

**/2/**

Williams was not quite a shark, but she was damn good.

Kaidan gave up his seat a hand after Shepard. Leaning against the short wall that separated the captain's quarters from the rest of the deck, he watched the commander set a small silver ring on the far end of the table from the game. The glow on the item and the bleed were the only indication that she had placed a stasis on the object. Alenko closed his eyes when he felt it. The pull was stronger than he remembered, laced with sharp arcing static that demarcated the creation of the solid paralyzing field. He held his breath the next time her field swirled around him.

Her power was striking--sharp and insistent. The sensation of it was similar to when they were in combat, which told him she chose not to adjust her amp and explained why she was concentrating on the stasis. Even if she botched the target, she could not hurt anyone with that ability.

"Umm, Commander?" Joker asked, staring down the table at her.

Blue eyes redirected from their current target, setting aside the task as the field dropped again. Kaidan almost missed the sensation of it.

Williams cocked an eyebrow. "Seriously? Is that you?"

"What?" Shepard asked with a shrug.

She grabbed up the ring and crossed the room. Taking a seat on the steps leading to the sleeping pods, the officer set the ring on the grated step between her feet.

A stasis later, Williams peeked at their CO from behind Joker.

"Really?" Shepard asked.

Everyone on the other side of the room nodded.

Kaidan leaned against the railing that separated the little seating area. "You're trying too hard," he said, his voice warm and low without intending it to be.

"This thing is tiny," she said, shaking the silvery ring at him. "How can they feel that?"

"We can all feel it."

Hers eyes darted from his, locking on a spot on the floor as if trying to devise a plan.

"You do that a lot?" he asked, glancing at the ring.

Shepard shook her head with a little grimace in response.

"That's why. You're forcing it." As the idea came to him, he hopped over the bar and gestured for the item. He studied it for a second--it was highly polished, the surface was a completely smooth muted finish that barely reflected light, and it weighed next to nothing. "Where'd you get this?"

"T'Soni," Ashley answered from across the room. "Some kind of asari kid's toy, wasn't it, Skipper?"

"Thank you, Chief," Shepard confirmed, with a little smile.

"Anytime, ma'am."

Until that moment, Alenko did not realize quite how close the two women were, though it was not surprising. Despite the differences in their backgrounds they were very similar, especially in their approach to combat.

"Damnit, Williams," Crosby crowed, as Ashley's laughter brightened the room again.

"Figures," Alenko muttered, as he tucked the ring into a pocket of his fatigues. When he looked back at Shepard, she was still perched on the stairs with her elbows resting on her knees. The furrow in her brow suggested she thinking along the same lines as he--looking for another route. "You trained on dummies, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah. And?"

Kaidan tipped his head to the side. "When you're used to doing things big, it can be harder to move it to a smaller scale quite so quickly. Like I said before, shave it down in increments." Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed Crosby stretching as he got up from the game. "Corporal, come 'ere."

"Oh, hell no." The officers and the chief all eyed him and he was more than aware of it. "Sirs," Crosby added sheepishly.

"You'll be fine," Alenko assured, gesturing for the man to join him.

"Yeah, I think I heard that once. Right before Jenkins bounced off the ground."

The lieutenant laughed. "Don't worry. I'm right here to make sure that even if she tried to the commander can't crush your skull or make your brain explode."

The last suggestion made Crosby blanch and glance over his shoulder at the officer, who tapped his feet a shoulder's width apart.

"Hands behind your head," Alenko ordered. "Now, don't move unless I tell you." The lieutenant took several steps back then made a large sweeping gesture toward the man. "Lock him up."

The miniscule movement went unnoticed by most of the room. Alenko watched her eyes move across the faces on the other side of the room to confirm that they could still feel it. Her field had a radius of nearly ten meters, or so he speculated by the size of the room and the people that showed reactions.

The next time she did it, he studied her as she set the ability. The barest twist of her wrist and Crosby was wrapped in a swath of rippling blue-white energy. _With a movement that precise, she shouldn't have any issues with control of her field_. His research suggested that larger movements tended to be indicative of field bleeds, but Shepard countered that assumption, at least in this instance. Alenko shook the thought away.

"All right. Let's switch it up a little," Kaidan suggested as he crossed his arms. The field dropped then the corporal and the commander both looked at him. "Just the legs this time."

Observing closely again, he noticed her thumb twitch. _Ah, something new then_. In part he did and did not expect it. This type of thing was not usually taught in the basic courses all biotics took. And since her specialization put her through the vanguard training, he could not really be shocked that her basic maneuvers lacked some of the finer delicacy often attributed to those trained in other methodologies. Still, having spent more than a year in the tutelage of an asari commando, he held out some expectation that her basic biotic training might be more thorough than the Alliance basic course. Though admittedly his own finesse had not been developed in the Alliance military training programs, the mere memory of Brain Camp made his arms tighten just a bit over his chest.

Nyx's hand relaxed and the field dissipated as she released the attempt. Shepard shook her hands loose then tried it again. A moment later the corporal looked like he was wearing shiny blue pants.

"Jump, Crosby," the lieutenant instructed.

When the corporal's attempt failed, Kaidan noticed the corner of Shepard's mouth tick up just a bit. Dropping the ability, the action repeated a dozen or more times, with similar results. Kaidan noticed the field shifting the longer it went on. The size seemed to barely waver, but the intensity of it altered, suggesting that the commander's power funneled more efficiently into the maneuver. Despite this, the field bleed remained significantly wide.

"Switch it up again," Kaidan prompted. "Left leg only."

The twitching in her hand suggested she struggled with the isolation of this one. Once she got a stasis set, the field looked shaky.

"Can you move, Crosby?"

Shepard winced when the Corporal's movement popped her stasis. "Damnit," she muttered, gripping her neck for a moment and closing her eyes. Alenko did not have to suggest she retry it. She took a breath and her eyes returned to her target. This time it took three attempts until she was happy with the ability, and the stasis held.

The display drew attention away from the poker game, but the audience continued to grow as it went on. Some were brought in by the cheers of encouragement from the crew, others because the pulling sensation made them curious. Once Shepard seemed comfortable with the isolation, the staff lieutenant directed Crosby to stand with his feet together.

"What difference is that going to make?" the corporal asked, suddenly intrigued by being the commander's guinea pig.

"When using precision biotics, the proximity of multiple targets has a direct effect on the ability to achieve one's desired goals," a delicate voice from the far side of the deck suggested.

 

**/3/**

The card game had been over for a while, but Ashley had remained in her spot. With Liara's arrival, though, the chief moved to lean on the table next to Joker to watch more closely. _This is going to be good._ Williams knew precisely what was happening. This was two potential mates about to start strutting for the attention of their intended. It had been happening in little ways since the argument about Shepard's biotics early on.

Liara, certain her method was the best choice, purchased the ring toys for the commander in an attempt to emphasize her suggestions. Williams knew from discussions with Shepard that the doctor and the commander worked with the items once or twice trying to get some type of result. Though Shepard had never noticed anything, or at least that's what she told the chief one afternoon when they were working on Shepard's pistol.

And in the other corner, Alenko, who forwarded a well-crafted report on the research he had done, as well as sending copies of the articles and other resources to Nyx. Of course everyone had figured out the commander's enjoyment of solid, accurate, and ample information. The chief theorized that it was likely due to the fact that it happened so rarely; usually she got bare bones, if she got anything at all.

The lieutenant's suggestions centered on use and familiarity. His conclusion focused on Shepard merely using her biotics more often than she did. It sounded dead on to Williams, when the CO mentioned it in the same conversation about Liara's methods; using her biotics more offensively and in conjunction with her other combat skills would offer her more chances to hone her abilities as well as give her arsenal more depth. It was a sound combat strategy in the chief's mind, at least.

"Right boot," Alenko said, switching sides as well as complicating the field so Shepard could not get to comfortable with the same target.

As the archaeologist moved through the crowd to a better vantage point, Shepard took a deep breath and locked her eyes on the corporal's boot. Kaidan and Liara both intently watched her hand as she set and dropped at least four fields before she felt happy with one. Crosby seemed to have come to recognize the movement and when her hand remained still he tried to jump. The right foot did not move when the left did.

"Ooh rah, Commander," he said triumphantly.

She smiled slightly. "Thank you, Crosby."

"Hands out," Alenko suggested, offering an example again.

The young soldier stood there proudly as she refined her stasis to hand-sized precision, all the while the pull that had seemed to encircle the whole deck gradually faded, or at least it seemed to in Ashley's opinion. _Or maybe I'm just getting used to it_.

"This is so creepy," Crosby said through a wide grin as he stared at his hand.

Even though she tried not to, Shepard laughed at his diagnosis of the situation. It caught on and rippled through the nearly full room. The distraction must have mixed up her mnemonic because suddenly Crosby was off his feet. She broke the stasis before anything happened to his hand. As Kaidan barriered the kid, Liara dropped a small singularity that held him just above the ground. Crosby's scream had, however, given them up.

Dr. Chakwas appeared from the medbay and saw the floating crewman. "Commander!" she growled in a voice that reminded Ashley way too much of her own mother. 

"I know. I know. No playing with the crew. Get him down, Alenko," Shepard replied defeatedly, threading her hands behind her head, as she walked over to the table. After stretching her neck, the commander pressed her hands against the cool metal. Shepard leaned there for a minute, seeming less than pleased with her slipup.

Liara offered to assist Crosby who was now suddenly less jazzed about helping out, while Alenko walked toward the commander.

"Sorry about that, Shepard," he said in a conciliatory tone.

"Ah, no big." She stood straighter and stretched her arms behind her. "I'll get it, ev--eventu--"

"Whoa," Ashley said, wrapping her arms around her friend as the CO crumpled unexpectedly.

They were all caught off guard by it, but Kaidan was right there on the spot. He scooped Nyx up and moved toward the medbay before anyone could really think anything.

"Doctor Chakwas," he called as he entered. There was no trace of the concern in his voice, though it was clearly etched on his face and in the almost perpetual tension he seemed to carry in his body as he crossed the room swiftly.

 

**/4/**

"What was going on out there?" the doctor asked, her exasperation clear as she looked up and saw the lieutenant gently set the commander on the first bed he came to. _This is ridiculous_.

As soon as he laid her down, he started a scan. "Blood sugar's low."

Chief Williams had followed and when she heard their field medic's diagnosis she pulled a small bottle out of the refrigerated cabinet by the door and tossed it to him. Chakwas gave Shepard a quick push of glucose to address the immediate concern.

The commander sat bolt upright. Chakwas looked at her through narrowed eyes. "When was the last time you ate, Commander?"

"Wha--What?" Shepard asked a little confused.

"Drink this," Kaidan ordered forcefully, placing the open bottle in her hands.

Shepard looked from one face to the other for a moment, then nodded and took a swig. "A couple hours ago, I guess. I have no idea, Doc," she said groggily, looking up at the concerned physician's face, clearly trying to regain her bearings.

"Everybody out!" Chakwas ordered. "You too Crosby, you're fine."

Alenko, Williams, and Crosby exited to the crew deck which had already been cleared by the turian and the quarian who were among the interested crowd. Liara exited to the lab she had laid claim to since she arrived on ship.

Karin paced the length of the bedside for a moment, collecting her thoughts and trying to rein in her irritation. She stopped and eyed the young officer for a moment. Shepard leaned forward, knees drawn up to her chest as she sipped the juice.

"I understand the stress you are under, Commander. It's my job to notice these things and be aware. But you are not making it any easier. You cannot do things like this, Shepard." Chakwas pointed at the cabinet near the door. "I have a stock of juice, water, ration, and protein bars for a reason," she said shaking the thin crinkling silver-wrapped bar at her CO. This was neither the first superior officer, nor the first biotic she had lectured for similar reasons

Shepard said nothing. Karin assumed it was a lecture she had heard more times than Nyx would ever admit to. The silence, however, only served to rile the doctor.

"Are you going to make me alarm your omnitool?" Chakwas shot.

"Look!" Shepard conceded, jumping off the bed, then grabbing the edge as her balance faltered just enough. "I get it. I didn't do it on purpose. Sometimes it just slips past me."

"It can't _just slip past you_ , Shepard. You are the Commanding Officer. You are responsible--for your safety, your squad, this crew. You have to be more aware." Chakwas slapped her hand against the bed for emphasis. The two women just glared at one another for a moment.

"I'm aware of my responsibilities, _Doctor_."

Shepard's eyes were cold and steely. The look made Karin nod, pleased that she found the right button to push the first time around. But then she knew enough about Shepard to guess that her people would be the weakness that might make her see reason.

"Good. And while we're on the subject you cannot go around putting on biotic displays on an empty stomach. Not that you should be putting them on at all, especially using the crew." Chakwas walked over to her desk and slammed down the bar she had been gesturing with and shaking at Shepard on the desk.

Nyx rubbed at the back of her neck. "I know. I've got it, Doc."

Tossing the bar at the commander, Chakwas sat at her desk. "Trying to kill yourself on my watch." She looked back at Nyx. "I'll shoot you myself. Now get out of my medbay."

"Yes, Mom," the commander replied with a light chuckle as she slipped through the door onto the empty crew deck.

"Well, hell, Shepard. You can certainly clear a room," the officer told herself as she drained the rest of the juice out of the bottle and disposed of it on her way to her quarters.

When the door slid open, Nyx raised an eyebrow at Tali. "Oh! Shepard. You're back quick."

The commander nodded.

The quarian looked over at her accomplice. "I'm … going … to … head back to Engineering."

Kaidan nodded at the quarian who slipped past Shepard, offering the officer a quick pat on the arm as she retreated. The lieutenant, however, unperturbed by his CO's arrival, continued his task, which seemed centered on stocking the small cabinet under her desk. "I normally wouldn't invade my commanding officer's privacy," he explained over his shoulder from her desk chair. "But--"

"Yeah well, I'm also sure that somewhere on that big list of things one does not plan on was 'carry said commanding officer to medbay because she's an idiot.'"

He turned, watching her as she crossed the room and leaned against the wall. Alenko held her gaze for a moment before turning back to the task at hand. "There's a tray on the table for you. Figured you might want to eat something soon. That glucose will wear off before you think and leave you worse for wear."

"Everybody's a doctor." Nyx aimed for playful, but even she could hear the note of irritation in her voice. She opted to comply with the well-meant suggestion, mostly. She sat down and inspected at the contents of the tray. The menu for the evening--roast beef, roasted potatoes, and green beans--was more edible than some of the stuff they got, especially this late in the cruise, but that was a very relative thing.

"Not trying to be. I just know what it's like. Been there, ya know?" he said closing the cabinet and grinning at her, trying to make light of the impetus for the unbidden task he had undertaken.

Nyx nodded, stabbing repeatedly at a green bean she had no interest in. The lieutenant stood and tossed her two of the bars Chakwas had been threatening her with.

"They taste like hell. But in a pinch," he said with a shrug. "You know, you really should always have one with you."

Nyx felt incredibly foolish and Alenko's consideration, while intended to offer relief, actually worsened her embarrassment. She had passed out in front of enough crew that it would be circling the ship by now. It was enough of an issue that Chakwas was threatening medical intervention and her staff lieutenant was stocking her quarters. It felt like the aftermath of the fight she had with her father not long after the procedure that amped her.

The amp just seemed to naturally channel what Nyx had always just equated with extra nervous energy. It made her feel lightheaded all the time, because her body ran in overdrive. The amp just exaggerated her propensity, while directing that which had always just been a strange sensation into something more dangerous, something projectable. That feeling, before the amp, always seemed to overcome her when she was angry, or happy, or really just overly emotional in general, but, for her, it happened mostly when she was upset, or irritated about something.

When Kaidan mentioned the silvery wrapped protein bars, she could not help but wince. No one ever called them by their name, but then _BioBars©_ were not a top market item, thus they did not require a snappy name. They were designed specifically to address the metabolic concerns inherent to biotics, amped or not.

She dropped the fork onto the oddly scavenged tray, then leaned back and looked up at him. "How'd they feel it? I figured you and Liara noticed it because you're both biotics too. But the whole damn deck noticed it."

Kaidan's eyes narrowed on her. "It's just one of those things. You've never noticed another biotic's field?"

When that smile bloomed, Shepard turned her attention to the silvery bars, which she stacked carefully atop one another. "There aren't a lot of biotics in SpecOps or N-school. Well, there weren't in my time. Techs all over. Gun nuts galore. I've always been a little more of the latter than people think I should be. And in biotic training,"--she shook her head--"I guess maybe I was more concerned with my own thing and just getting through it that I didn't notice anything else."

His stance was similar to the one he had earlier--at ease, hand folded over his chest, wearing a very thoughtful guise. It offered her a glimmer of hope that he was approaching their conversation the same way he had on the deck--like an instructor. When she glanced up at him, Nyx felt a little relieved to see that calculating look he wore whenever he was cracking a system. When he walked past her, he tapped her on the shoulder lightly.

"Come over here for a minute. Put the tray on the desk first though."

She complied then walked over to him. Alenko turned her so she faced away from him then stood just a step or two behind her.

"Everyone's field is different, but sort of the same. I've never really been able to find out why, beyond the physics of it all, I mean. I think it's kind of like a fingerprint of a person's power. Sometimes it's about the ability, sometimes the amount of force they're generating, sometimes the mass of the target. It wavers and changes. If I'm lucky, I might just be able to project enough to show you," he explained, raising his left hand.

The lieutenant reached slightly past her, leaning just barely over her shoulder. She could see the sheath of blue and little whitish arcs slicking along his forearm then she felt something tugging at her body gently.

She cocked her head toward him. "That slight pull. That's it?"

He nodded.

"That's more subtle than I expected," she said as she turned and took a step away from him.

He laughed as he shoved his hands in his pockets. "Yours isn't. In combat, or earlier. Your field is…"

"Are you telling me I have a big aura?" Shepard chided, setting her hands on her hips as she glanced up at him with an impish smile.

They both laughed.

"I would never. I was raised to be a gentleman," the lieutenant retorted with a warm grin.

She smiled sweetly, gazing at up him for a moment before she caught herself. Then she cast her eyes away again as quickly. Redirecting her thoughts, she asked, "So that's what disturbed the card game?"

"Yes. Sort of. Here," he suggested, gesturing for her to stand in front of him again then he squared her shoulders. "Let me try something different. It might give you a better idea."

The slicking arcs returned to his forearm again, but this time it was more than just a mere gentle pull. The bluish glow wavered over his olive skin giving it an eerily sort of paleness. A similar field wrapped the entire table causing it to hover barely above the ground. Then the gentle pull shifted slightly, it became more forceful, almost insistent. Her head lolled to the right as she watched the table waver slightly, as if teetering on a precipice. A warm, smooth sensation slid across her skin and enveloped her, like submerging oneself in a bath of hot water. It was more intense and vibrant than she expected.

The strangeness and the enticing nature of it distracted her. Until the sparking tingle shot up her right arm, Nyx was wholly unaware that she had leaned against him, or that her hand had come to rest on his thigh. But when his right hand finally touched hers, adding that striking new sensation to the one enveloping and engulfing her, she glanced down. She noticed his hand covering hers on the front of his leg, but that did not immediately alarm her.

"Shepard," he said softly, with a trace of gravel in his voice.

She could feel his warm breath against her skin. When she turned toward his voice, her eyes met his. The usually warm amber now rimmed in cool blue.  Looking up at him seemed to intensify everything else swirling around her, at least for a moment. Then the combined sensations trembled and started to slip away. Their proximity to one another combined with the feeling tugging at her seemed to lower Nyx's defenses. Kaidan moved toward her slightly, but when he stopped--she was more regretful than relieved. He looked away from her as his field weakened and seemed to pop suddenly. The stark absence of it was jarring.

Being aware of another biotic's field was nothing at all like having an ability placed on you. The power reached out, slid around her, bathing her in this strange sensation while it pulled at her gently. As the last remnants fell away, seemingly slipping off her skin like drops of water, she took a few steps away and leaned on the table he manipulated in order give her an idea what he and Liara had been talking about.

Nyx possessed no words. She could formulate no response and she became entirely certain in an instant that there was no way she could look at him in that moment without revealing everything she could not keep herself from feeling and should not bring herself to say. The display was perhaps the most strangely intimate moment in Shepard's memory and the sensation was beyond her comprehension. It had also stripped her bare and she knew that he would see her weakness written boldly on her face and in her eyes--every feeling she fought, every thought she suppressed would be vibrantly displayed.

**/5/**

Shepard's retreat also provided the lieutenant a reprieve. Alenko was struggling similarly for some semblance of composure. Kaidan's mind raced, part of him wishing he could backtrack again. Go back to that moment and continue moving toward her instead of stopping, instead of thinking better of it and pulling away. The idea of just grabbing her and kissing her, making his consideration for her definite and known, played over and over in his mind along with all the reasons why that was the worst possible idea. Part of him knew that if he did put it all out there, at least he could give up the exhausting task of trying just to keep it all professional. He would not have to fight to be constantly mindful in every exchange with her. But as he pressed the back of his head against the bulkhead he knew he would not do that, no matter how much he might want to--he would not put her in that position.

Trying to stamp down his annoyance at his lack of action, Kaidan straightened and uttered, "I should probably go, Shepard."

She just nodded. Her silence plagued him. For a moment, he thought he saw something in her eyes that suggested she was as affected by what happened as he was. As he had leaned toward her, before he thought about it, Alenko felt Shepard might be receptive to his advance. But as she refused to look at him, the lieutenant could not help but wonder if he had misread.

When he reached the door, something made him stop. "Next time maybe we'll try crates in the cargo bay rather than volunteer guinea pigs."

"Probably a good call," she chimed with a little trace of brightness in her voice.  

A wave of relief rolled over him, the tightness in his chest relaxed and the lieutenant could not help the ghost of a grin that curved his lips for a moment before he regained control. The idea of spending time with her, even if it was just working on her biotics, thrilled him--much more than it should, given their predicament.

 

**/6/**

Nyx rested her forearms on the table and pressed her forehead to the cool metal surface. She tried to control her breathing, but her body still reacted to the exchange. Perhaps it was all in her mind but she swore she could still sense the arcing in her nerves. Shepard wondered if maybe it was all just in her mind, and opted to attribute her affectation to the attraction she was finding it harder and harder to exert control over.

Suddenly a disturbing thought struck her. _Does every field feel like that?_ The thought served to distract her and she considered it for a moment. There was a momentary sense of embarrassment as she shivered uncomfortably at the idea that she had done that to a good-sized portion of the crew earlier. Shepard shook her head against the cool surface. _No, no, no. Someone would have made a wiseass crack about it. Joker would have said something about it, for sure._

Standing up, she turned and paced a few steps, fists clinched as she fought against herself, trying to quell whatever was rising in her. From the moment she met him, Kaidan had been an unquantifiable variable. Something about the way he had not blatantly hit on her, despite making it clear that meeting someone was among the reasons he and his buddies had been at the Corona Club, then the little chivalrous display with the mugger. Shepard bit back the smile that formed remembering the evening, especially the shocked but pleased look in his eyes when she had kissed him.

There were traces of it when they talked candidly, that connection that they made over drinks on Arcturus, and then in stark contrast stood the moment minutes earlier. Shepard could remember being looked at kind of like that before, but the intensity in Kaidan's stare was beyond anything she experienced before. A part of her wanted Kaidan to want her as much as she wanted him, though the idea of it terrified her. That first night, there had been more than one instant when she considered propositioning him. Though then her ideas did not extend beyond the idea of finding a quiet place and making him scream her name. But something shifted in the past few months.

"Are you insane?" she whispered to herself. "Look at your life."

Nyx shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest as the pacing began anew. _Active N7 operators don't have enough down time. You're always on call. And now you're on the Council's leash, too. That looks like it's going to make your Special Operations work look like a vacation. How can you even consider forcing that on another person? Even if he's in your crew, even if you cross that line, it's like chaining them to a ghost--someone who can only ever be partially present. It would be worse than Mom and Da, passing ships in the night would be the best hope._

Stopping for a moment, she pressed her back to the wall and glanced across the room. The pictures were a reminder not only of her career but of her lack of a real normal life. The only relatively normal photos were of a girl with skewed dreams and her grandfather, then her parents in one of those rare moments of normality that they stole from the stark reality of an active-duty military marriage. Everything else was her and her crews, teammates, her battle buddies from training. Her whole life was this--the Alliance, the mission, the next load out.

Then came the recollection of why she was still single. The few relationships she had all ended with the same deceptively simple statement: _I barely see you_. Usually the words turned out to be more than just an accusation, typically the sentiment always became an ultimatum. Each time it turned out the same way, with her resumed deployment.

Nyx had fought long and hard for the career she wanted; she also knew that her operational time was limited. In her experience, men did not take it well when the woman they were with told them her career ranked above him in her list of priorities.

 _Do you really want to have that conversation again?_ Shepard asked herself. _Do you really want to have that conversation with him?_

The pacing began again in earnest as she took long, slow, deep breaths with each step. Her breathing was loud enough for her to hear. She wanted it that way, concentrating on the sound usually helped her clear her mind. She closed her eyes and let her chin drop to her chest once she felt like she regained some semblance of her composure.


	17. Chinks in the Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stress can be dangerous, it can also make little weaknesses in something gaping maws. As the Normandy wraps up the situation on Matano and heads into port for resupply, Shepard finds herself trying not to get swallowed up in the canyons appearing in her own façade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Thanks to all of you reading and letting me know how much you are enjoying this piece (thank you so much for all the encouragement and kind words). It means the world to me and is quite inspiring. Thanks to LadyAmes and Chy again for their help with this and other chapters.

**17 Chinks in the Armor**

**/1/**

The nightmare on Chasca took multiple load outs to clean up. The commander found herself relieved that she typically shuffled out the members of her ground team. As much as she knew she should not decide her fire teams based on personal feelings. Shepard felt an almost overwhelming need to distance herself from the staff lieutenant.

Of course part of her concern was pure selfish worry. It was foolish, she knew; prior to the incident in her cabin she had never noticed any biotic's field. But she held a slightly irrational fear that if she did notice the lieutenant's in a combat situation that it might distract her. Nyx was nearly certain she had put way too much thought into it, but she also knew that distractions were not conducive to successful combat situations, which was how she had justified her choices to herself initially.

When she, Tali, and Garrus returned from the final trip to what Wrex was too cheerfully calling the colony of the dead, Shepard still had her helmet in hand as she trotted toward the bridge. "Joker, make ready and set course for the Citadel before people have to start gnawing on the furniture for sustenance," Shepard ordered from the threshold of the cockpit. 

"Start?" Joker replied with a glance around the edge of his chair. "I'm pretty sure I saw Crosby nibbling on one of the chairs in the mess while you were gone." 

"Bite me, Joker," Crosby added from his post near the airlock. He nodded politely at the commander who returned the gesture.

"Might want to be nice to the security, helmsman. That's the man responsible for keeping anyone with cannibalistic tendencies from chomping on your ass."

"Yeah, but who's gonna protect me from his constantly undressing me with his eyes?" Joker jabbed.

"You wish," Crosby shot back.

"But the two of you would make such a cute couple. Carry on, gentlemen," she said before they went any farther.

Despite her fatigue, sleep had been eluding her again, which she wanted to attribute to the combination of the beacon and the rising stress of the mission. But it was also complicated by the fact the _Normandy_ and her combat team had been running full tilt for more than a month. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she lifted her helmet over her head and stretched her arms behind her. She stopped cold and lowered her arms slowly when she saw him leaning there next to the elevator watching her.

The staff lieutenant straightened up quickly and asked, "You have a minute, Shepard?"

She nodded, "Of course." All the while she repeated a mantra in her head, a little reminder to remain professional with him, in hopes that it would work and she would not let down her guard again.

Shepard followed him to the little seating area near her quarters on the crew deck and sat down across from him, leaning her elbows on her knees and jostling her helmet slightly between her hands. There was concern in his voice as he spoke about the situation they were in; _she was in_. Shepard listened carefully, though she broke her own rule and did not look him in the eye as they spoke. It felt odd to her not to do so, but there was a sense of protection in the illusion of distance it created.

"Just leave yourself a way out. I've seen what cutting corners can do. And I'd hate to see something happen to you, Nyx."

Her eyes darted upwards, surprise and something else made her heart suddenly start racing. His use of her first name startled her and as much as pleasure as she derived from hearing her given name in that smooth tone of his, she could not, good conscience, let it slide.

"That's not the appropriate way to address your commanding officer, Lieutenant," she advised weakly.

"I wasn't speaking to you as my commanding officer."

The surety of it hit her like a krogan to the chest. The intensity of his amber eyes on her made her feel short of breath. Nor could she break his gaze as their mostly one-sided conversation continued.

"Look," he continued. "We can all feel the stress of this. The rest of the team is straining, but you're running double time in comparison to the rest of us. You're still training with the marine detail every day, you're planning and leading every mission we are assigned. Then there are the ones we just stumble across."

"I'm used to this, Lieutenant. Trust me."

Kaidan leaned toward her. "I do trust you Shepard. But I also see you. I can see the edges fraying. I don't know if it’s the beacon from Eden Prime, or Saren and the Council, or the Alliance." He stared at her for a long moment. "Or if it's something all together different."

She could see it in his eyes. He was honestly concerned about her. Nyx was still fidgeting with the helmet. "Before I got this assignment, my guys had run twenty months non-stop, no leave beyond a few one-day stints in port at Arcturus. I was yanked off some backwater moon and got about twelve hours down time before the _Normandy_ put out." She chuckled and looked down at her helmet.

"Damn, Shepard."

"So this is nothing new to me. I'm pretty well used to it."

"Yeah, but you can't maintain a tempo like that," Kaidan stated. When her eyes shot to his again, he continued, "No one can, it's physically impossible, no matter how good you are. Eventually something's going to give."

For a moment she thought it was her sanity. Even in that moment she still could not completely separate the woman and the officer, the two of them were brawling in her head, each trying to gain a foothold or advantage over the other.

"I'll deal with it when it comes," she replied, not even able to convince herself. She shook her head when she saw it had not worked on him either. "That's what I do. That's why they call me. I improvise, adapt, overcome. I make it work, even when it shouldn't. I'm dependable that way, it seems."

Shepard pulled her glove off and ran her hand across her forehead for a moment. Her head seemed to be brimming with all the things she couldn't or shouldn't say. _All for the sake of duty. All for the sake of regulations._ Nyx was the one with the truth, the extra bits of information that could not be disclosed to her men, the secrets that she could not share--both, professional and personal. She looked down at the helmet again. The N7 tab near the seal taunting her, and her hands absently started turning it again.

Kaidan leaned forward and reached toward her, stilling the helmet she had fidgeted with the entire time. The action brought her eyes back to his, the whiskey brown burned with that power that stifled her ability to form complete thoughts as his gaze seemed to bore into her. "You don't serve as long as I have without coming to terms with yourself. You also learn that if someone is special to you, you help them. Try to keep them from making mistakes," he said tenderly, the softness in his voice swirled around her like silk.

Wrapped in that moment, her breath hitched at the word that her brain got caught on. "Special, huh?" she asked looking down at his hand on her helmet.

Things seemed to stop for a second. Kaidan's hand moved, his fingers were warm on her chin as he lifted her head so he could see her face. "If I'm out of line, just sat the word."

Staring into his eyes, the battle raging in her head peaked. But no words would come. Finally thoughts broke through the swirling emptiness like a screams in the night. _Admit it. Lie. Skirt the issue._ _Just stop over thinking for once, Nyx. Tell him the truth. All of it._

"You're not out of line," she confided. _You are_ so _not_ _out of line._ She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a long moment--allowing the officer to step back in before she looked back into his eyes. Her mantra started repeating anew in the back of her head. "But there are regs, Kaidan."

The slight tinge of hope that had colored his expression a moment earlier seemed to dissipate with her addition. He leaned back in his chair considering what she said. "I get you, Shepard," he told his hands, which were clasped loosely in his lap. "I don't make a habit of complicating the chain of command. But …" He glanced up at her as she stood. "Just think about what I said."

The commander nodded. As she swept past him, Alenko held up his hand and let it catch hers for just a moment. Her measured pace broke for a step before she continued on to her quarters. She sat down on the edge of the bed the helmet still in her hands. She flipped it around, and looked at her reflection in the polished shielding.

Nyx felt elated and sick all at the same time. Her stomach was tied in knots. She had almost been relieved when Ashley told her that rumor. There was a part of her that tried to, wanted to believe it was anyone but her for a while. That part that tried to maintain the command persona really did not want to entertain the idea that Alenko 'could be sweet' on his CO, though that was precisely what another part of her wanted.

That was the whimsical part--the part that still looked at the stars and smiled at the possibilities out there beyond her reach, beyond her sight. It was the side of her that sent holiday and birthday cards to the man who had armed her and a handful of soldiers on Elysium. The part that was proud to have been the first person to salute Ensign Baird when she graduated OCS. That was the bright side of Shepard, the side that prompted her to want to join the service in the first place. The idealist that wanted to help, wanted to protect people, and wanted to make things safe.

Her hands pressed against the ceramic of the piece of armor in her hands as she stared at her own eyes, seeing the mix of darkness and light, reality and whimsy, that still somehow mixed in her soul. She rested her forehead against the helmet.

"This would be so much easier if he hadn't said anything. Just let me go on thinking it was all in my head. Fuck!" she grumbled quietly against the cool glazed coating.

This was one command situation she never experienced. Yes, she had subordinates and superiors ask her out more than once--even been picked up on by a guy in the middle of a firefight. But that was not what was happening with Alenko.

He had classified it. Special.

What the two of them were dancing around was not some fling. It was something that could find them faced with sanctions at the one end of the spectrum or an extreme version of the same separation her parents dealt with all her life on the other. She knew the regs. Partners cannot serve in the same chain of command. Hell, Shepard had doled out that regulation herself at one point in her career. Transferring an amazing demolitions tech out of her team a few years prior due to a serious relationship she started with another, more senior team member. Seniority seemed like the fairest way to address the issue at the time.

The CO growled at her reflection. She quickly stood and launched her helmet across the room. The remnants of her biotics flickered over the surface of the brain bucket as it ricocheted off a side wall and rolled around for a moment before it came to a stop a few feet from the door. Nyx just stared at it. Right now, she did not care if the entire ship had overheard her little outburst.

And she knew someone had when the chime rang to announce someone at her door. "In," she said too quickly for anyone to be able to read the frustration in her voice.

 

**/2/**

Tali'Zorah scanned the room quickly. The helmet lay cracked and lolling slightly a few feet from the door, and she suspected that was the impetus for the ricochet that she heard when she exited the elevator. She noticed Kaidan's surprise at the noise and waved him off as she approached the commander's quarters. Judging from the look on the lieutenant's face, Shepard did not need him inquiring about whatever had just happened.

Though, she might be young, the quarian was not naïve. She had seen the interplay between the two officers, and Shepard had started to say something once about it to Tali, but stopped herself. Alenko cared about the commander, hell, in their own ways they all did. But the lieutenant's interest was keener, deeper, and it was something Tali had seen him struggle with.

Her steps into the room were cautious, and when the door slid shut automatically, Shepard looked up at her again. When the commander stood, the human gestured to the table in the center of the room.

"Is everything all right, Shepard?" Tali asked quietly as they sat down.

"I'm fine. Just a little … tired."

Tali knew better; she doubted the mere fatigue could cause the commander to exhibit such a lack of control. This was rawer than sleep deprivation. Shepard leaned back in her chair, her eyes locked on the helmet that was just barely bobbing with the rhythm of the drive core below decks.

"You're certain there's nothing you want to talk about?" the quarian prompted again.

Nyx shook her head. Then finally let the mask drop as she propped her forehead against her balled up fists. Her eyes were screwed shut tightly. The strain in her face and tension in her body spoke volumes to the state the commander was in at the moment. Then suddenly she just blurted it out, though her voice was low, just above a whisper, and laden with guilt. "I think I'm falling for him."

The admission Shepard struggled to give voice hung there in the silence for a moment.

"I can't," she said, still shaking her head. "He's in my chain of command."

_And there lay the issue_ , Tali knew. Shepard's commitment to her people, on the ship and beyond was something the quarian admired. Like any good quarian captain, the commander put the safety of her crew ahead of everything else. Tali had seen it in the little things she did, like leading her team into combat and watching over them as they climbed into the Mako. She also checked on them all regularly, making sure they were well, getting enough rest, even just taking a few moments to talk, about whatever, if they wanted or needed it.

She gave so freely of herself to all of them, even beyond the combat squad. Several times in engineering Tali had overheard some of the crew talking about how they were shocked that their CO knew their names, or had asked them about one thing or another they had done or were currently working on. Shepard knew them all, cared about every soul on board the _Normandy_.

Like some of the others on the squad, Tali'Zorah was also aware that while Shepard tried to maintain that type of relationship with the lieutenant as well, there was something more there for both of them. Nyx tried to maintain the same level of consideration for everyone, though she was much closer with the squad possibly because they spent the most time together, or maybe it was the combat focus--literally, putting her life in their hands and vice versa. But even amongst that tight knit group there seemed to be more between Shepard and Alenko; they all noticed it. _Well, maybe._

Shepard leaned back and looked at Tali. "But to be honest, part of me doesn't care," the human admitted. "There's a very real part of me that wants to say, 'to hell with the Regs.' … Hell of a way for officer in command to think, huh?"

The sharp scrape of the chair against the deck accompanied the commander's quick movement, she stood and started pacing the width of the room.

Tali'Zorah sat completely silent, watching as Shepard just kept talking.

"It's not really new, kind of. I've dated officers before, never in my chain of command, mind you. And I have even been propositioned a few times. This just … That's not what this feels like. This just seems different."

Shepard stopped for a moment and looked at Tali, who just waited. This is how their conversations often played out. One talking while the other paid attention, prompting sometimes, but mostly just listening.

"I don't want to have sex with him. Well," she recanted with a shrug, "I do. But that's not _all of it_. I just want to _be_ with him. Be there for him, with him. I care about him, what he thinks, what he wants, what he needs. I want to know things about him. Tell him things." Shaking her head she looked at Tali. "I'm not making any sense, am I?"

"You're making perfect sense, Shepard. He's special to you. Someone you feel at ease with," Tali observed. She knew the feeling well, had even experienced it herself.

"But I can't." Shepard darted across the room and slipped back into the chair with a wide-eyed look of desperation on her face. "I can't do this."

"Why not?"

"If I do this. If I pursue a relationship with him, I'll lose him. The brass won't let him stay under my command. We'll be separated. Then the team will suffer as well. And it will probably affect the mission, definitely affect his career. Just the rumors and innuendos alone could stifle his advancement in the service."

Tali laughed then gingerly placed her hand on Shepard's. "Ask him."

Shepard knitted her eyebrows at her friend.

"Ask him if he cares about any of that. I've seen it. The way he looks at you when he thinks no one else is aware. The look of utter desire and fear when Ashley played that prank with the armor; he could not take his eyes off you. I bet he's been distracted every time you've worn it. Poor man. But to be honest, I'm not sure he would care about the sanctions. He seems quite ardent."

"The team can't lose him."

"You're right there. He's integral. The team takes a lot of the little things to him," Tali admitted, noticing the realization that slid across the human's features. She hated to agree with the commander on this point but Shepard was right about how important Alenko was to all of them. "We don't want to weigh you down with the minutiae. So he told us to bring anything … non-essential to him."

"What?"

"You have more than enough on your plate. And he's the head of your detail. It's his job."

Shepard knew Tali was right, Nyx just had not expected him to transfer that responsibility to the non-Alliance crew. Of course, Tali understood it better than anyone. Alenko did not just do it because it was his job. He did it for his own reasons, and a reason similar to why the squad all agreed to it. They cared, and they wanted to help as much as possible. Lessen the craziness of it all in any way they could.

"I can't believe he did that."

Tali touched Shepard's shoulder lightly. "We all care. And we're all trying to do what we can to help, where we can."

"Damnit," she said covering her face in her hands. The knowledge seemed to rekindle the commander's unease.

Tali just leaned forward and put her hand on Shepard's shoulder. "There's nothing I can say to help you. I don't know your people's procedures about this. And even if I did, that wouldn't make it any easier, I suspect."

"I know." Nyx's voice was muffled by her hands.

"The lieutenant feels the same way I think--about you and the situation. Caught up, confused, boxed in."

Shepard peeked through her hands at quarian.

"He's been struggling with it for a while, too. I've seen traces of it from time to time." Tali attempted to offer as soothing a touch as gloved hands could manage. "I think you just have to decide what's most important to you, Shepard. Is it all about the mission? Or do you want a life, too? Something more than big guns and fiery explosions?"

Shepard let her arms fall to the table; her head following and coming to rest on her forearms with a muffled thump. "My whole life has been about the mission. Even as a kid. I was driven toward a known goal; achievable or not, I've always done the job I set out to do. This is the only time there's ever been anything,"--she raised her head and looked at Tali with reddened eyes--"and I mean _anything_ that has ever rivaled that drive."

The quarian nodded.

The usually bright blue of Shepard's eyes clouded, and her voice held a note of wistfulness. "My whole life, I've been able to walk away from everything. My parents. My best friends. Guys who really cared about me. I could walk away from anything, anyone," she said, rubbing her hand along her chin. "Nothing ever tempted me to even consider anything else. But the idea of walking away from this, from him, it feels wrong. Then again when I think about how the mission and the team could be affected, that feels wrong, too." Shepard leaned her forehead against the heels of her palms.

Tali moved closer and slid her arm over Shepard's shoulder, then leaned her head toward her friend's. "Take your time. Make sure you make a decision you can both live with. The lieutenant seems like a patient sort."

Shepard nodded against her hands. "Sorry, Tali," she said turning her head and looking over. "I didn't mean to … just throw all this on you."

Tali laughed. "Who else on this ship could you say such things to?" she asked lightly leaning back in her chair. "You saved my life Shepard. And you are a friend." She patted the commander's shoulder and added, "And it won't go beyond these walls."

"Of that I have no doubt, Tali."

 

**/3/**

It was well-known that the tightest lips on the ship were Tali's. Her soft-spoken nature went mainly overlooked, but she heard and saw everything. Shepard really admired her, beyond her technical skill and prowess in the field. The quarian had quickly picked up on the social conventions of the humans on the ship and adapted quickly to the unique nature of the squad itself. She managed to acclimate herself to the disparate groups quite easily. It was striking.

The commander propped her chin up on one hand and turned her gaze on her masked friend. "Was there something you needed?"

Tali's hand dropped into her lap and her face turned toward the helmet lying on the floor. "I heard the ruckus when I was heading to the bridge. So I came to check on you."

Shepard nodded with a smile. "I appreciate it, Tali."

"Least I could do." The quarian stood and walked toward the door. She picked up the helmet and tossed it to the commander. "When we get to the Citadel. You should get off the ship for a while. Just take some time. Think. Relax."

With that suggestion, the engineer left the human alone. Shepard set the helmet on the table in front of her and stared at it for a short time. Then she rolled it around in her hands, examining the damage. The visor could be replaced; the cracked housing would be trickier. Even if she could repair it, it would be weak. _Ultimately_ , she determined, _it might be safer to replace the piece_. She ran her thumb over the N7 logo near the seal then set the item in the center of the table.

_The dream_. _The thing you always thought you wanted. Maybe Tali's right, maybe there is something beyond the mission, something more than just priority objectives and blowing shit up._ Even if there was something more, she really had no earthly idea how to fit it into the existence she led.

Perpetually on call. Someone always needed her or her team. Something always loomed just past the horizon, just beyond the next relay. Looking at it from the idea of forcing someone else to be part of it, Nyx realized how insane her life could seem even to people with similar training. For her, alone, it was like the way she grew up. It was just what she knew. But for someone else, she knew from experience, that it was not a life conducive to a real relationship. _Maybe you're reading too much into things, Nyx. He said it himself, he's a career man. He knows what it's like, mostly._

The cracked reflection in the visor stared at her with accusatory eyes to which Shepard groaned. She rubbed at her neck and shifted in her armor as she stood. After a shower and a change of clothes, Nyx grabbed up the helmet and walked stoically to the elevator with it resting under her arm.

When the door opened she took two steps into the bay. "Chief, I need to put in a requisition," the commander yelled coolly.

When Williams turned toward her, she tossed the helmet her way. Ashley caught it and rolled it around in her hands for a moment

"What the hell?" Williams barked back at the officer.

Shepard was back in the elevator, arms crossed loosely over her chest before the chief turned again. She headed up the stairs to the command deck and made her way to the cockpit. "ETA, Moreau?" She was standing directly behind him.

He certainly heard it in the tone of her voice that this was not the playful Commander that had gotten on the ship a few hours earlier. "Four hours out from the relay, ma'am."

Joker would have noticed the heaviness in her footsteps, too; she and Tali were the only two people who could sneak up on him in the cockpit. The fact that he heard her approach made it obvious the commander was experiencing some additional strain. She looked around the bridge for a moment. Shepard battled against an overwhelming desire to find a crawlspace and hide away. When she thought about it, she realized that the easiest place to go unnoticed, relatively, might be in plain sight.

Knowing Pressly was prepping for the resupply, she knew he would have something that either needed her attention or that she could distract herself with. After three hours spent laboring through the ship's stores and inventories, Shepard was powerfully glad she got promoted before she had been forced to prepare for one. But Charles Pressly was the right man for that job. He was precise, thorough, and missed nothing. Seeing his attention to detail Shepard realized that it was easy to tell she was not the one meant for the post of Executive Officer of this bird.

Nyx could not help but think that if she had been left in that position, people would have likely been gnawing on furniture because she forgot to requisition adequate stores. Or they would be short on something small and vital, though with a smirk she knew there would be plenty of heat sinks and munitions. She chuckled at herself as she crossed the empty crew deck. It was the only time she found herself glad to not catch sight of the staff lieutenant at the station outside her quarters.

 

**/4/**

The commander, and she assumed, the crew were relieved that the _Normandy_ was putting in at the Citadel. Most of the systems and locales they had been deployed to in their first few months on cruise were not places that most people had on their lists of vacation destinations. The _Normandy_ was certainly not the boat you wanted to be on if exotic locales with friendly natives were the reason you joined the Alliance Navy. The morning they were scheduled to arrive the crew were over the moon at the announcement of healthy leave time, well healthy in her opinion--forty-eight hours to try and reclaim some psychic calm before they put back out.

Most of their resupply stops were unlikely to be quite so generous she knew, but when she informed command they were headed toward the station, she got a message that intelligence might have something else useful from Saren's files.  The possibility of finally having a lead made her positively giddy.

"Commander," Crosby greeted as he filled his coffee cup then held the pot out in her direction. "I have to ask. What is with the socks?"

She laughed looking down at one of her favorite pairs--safety orange with black toe, heel, and cuff. "You have something against my socks, Corporal?"

"Nah," he shook his head. "Just curious. And those are quite … bright."

"My da. When I was a kid he'd always wear the wildest socks under his uniforms. And one morning he was sitting there putting on his shoes and I asked him the same question. He said that they reminded him who he was."

Crosby stared at her.

"My father always said that in the service, everything is so orderly and so measured that you can lose yourself in it. Lose yourself to the uniform, ya know?"

Crosby just stared at her; he did not seem to be following. She chalked it up to the fact that he had only been in the Alliance for a few years.

"Plaisance has a tattoo right, a Celtic knot on his shoulder if I recall. It holds some meaning for him, doesn't it?" she asked, trying to find another comparison that might bring him around to what she was getting at.

He nodded, "Sure."

"That's his version of my socks. That's all him. It's something he did just to remind him of something about himself. This is my version. Safety orange socks are my way of retaining a sense of who I am."

He nodded again, with a look that told her he got it. "Cool. Coffee?" he asked still holding the pot.

"That's a rhetorical question, right?" she replied holding her cup out, which he generously filled. He made his way up to the command deck as Shepard sweetened the strong black liquid.

"But the question would be, what do the safety orange socks say about who you are?" another officer chimed in as they approached the ship's CO.

"Doctor Chakwas, I don't analyze the socks, they just whisper my name and wind up in my locker," Shepard said into her cup with a playful grin.

The doctor refilled her own mug and dosed it with cream. "I don't know. I think it’s a way for you to get people to notice you."

"Really? Notice what, precisely?"

"That you are more than just the uniform," she said quietly. "Which you are, by the way. We all are. Everyone has a quirk, some little way that they rebel against the expectations placed upon them. You are the Alliance's golden girl. A hero. You are the mold. Yet, you rebel but only in one small way that few people get to see."

"How does that mean I want to be noticed?"

"Why are you wandering around the crew deck without your boots? Plus, it's not just being noticed per se--you want someone to see _you_."

Shepard shrugged and followed her toward the medbay. "You're repeating yourself."

"Not really." Chakwas sat at her desk. "You are not only _the_ Commander Shepard. You are also Lieutenant Commander Nyx Réalta Shepard. There's an individual under all those ribbons. How many people know her?"

_Three--Caz, Lin, and Jensen_. The answer flew into Nyx's head without thought. "Does it matter?"

"You tell me." Chakwas glanced up at her as she sipped her coffee.

Shepard stood there and stared at the doctor for a long moment before she walked to the back of the medbay.

"You're feeling extra philosophical this morning, Doc."

Chakwas tilted her head at the commander in a way that made Shepard wonder.

Uncertain quite how to take the conversation with the medical officer, the commander moved toward the back of the medbay to check in on T'Soni. The officer hoped it might prompt a distraction from the self-evaluative suggestion the good doctor's suggestion might prompt. Nyx had been running on that path non-stop for about the last day, and really did not need a new stroke to add to it at the moment. Shepard had been indulging in that behavior enough lately, and did not really want to prompt more.

When she entered, Liara turned and smiled at the human. Nyx hopped up on the desk and looked down at the Prothean expert. Dr. T'Soni stared at the commander for a moment. "Have you had any luck refining your biotics?" Liara asked politely.

"Not sure. Can't really feel my own field and the crates have proven rather quiet training partners. Not gasps, or wide-eyed looks to judge by," Shepard said.

"Well if you ever need a hand, just let me know. I'd be glad to help."

"You're not peeved that I took Alenko's method?"

Liara tilted her head. "I wasn't sure which option would work best for you. At least you tried both. It's just a pity."

"What is?" Shepard asked absently.

"With raw scores like yours and the proper training, you could have been quite a formidable biotic."

Shepard laughed into her cup. "Could have been?"

Liara started fidgeting. "That's not quite what I meant," she stammered. "I … I mean to say that the lateness of when you were amped, and the cursory training you received, stifled your potential."

"Ceramae said the same thing."

"Ceramae?" the asari asked.

"Retired asari commando, worked for High Command. She spent a year-and-a-half trying to make me want to be a biotic," the commander revealed with a light chuckle.

T'Soni looked up at Shepard, A tight crinkle in her forehead hooding her big blue eyes. "You didn't want it?"

Shepard readjusted slightly after she set down her mug and she looked the older female in the eye. "I've always been a little different, though most would say weird. I wanted to be a marine, a grunt. Running and gunning all over the galaxy. That was my big dream." The commander laughed. "When they told me I had biotic potential, my whole world got turned upside down. I didn't feel like myself anymore, there was this thing about me I'd had all along that I didn't even know about. At the time it seemed like something that was going to dismantle everything I wanted, everything I planned. Hell, it even made me question who I thought I was."

 

**/5/**

Liara could not imagine thinking about biotics like something negative or separate from her, but then she knew that for asari it was a given. With humans it was still rather a rarity.

"So you did not know growing up, that you were a biotic?" Liara asked, looking up at the officer.

Shepard winced slightly. "Looking back, I guess I kind of knew something was off. Or more off, I should say."

"But you did not show signs of biotics."

"Not really." Shepard sipped at her mug. "It's not like other cultures. With the asari, it's the norm. With the volus, it is coveted. With the turians it is kind of a mix of a gift and a curse. For me it was the latter. When I found out, I kind of felt like someone's science project."

Liara felt herself react to the revelation. "Oh! Oh my goodness. I am so sorry."

The scholar went on to apologize for her missteps in an earlier conversations the two shared where she had unintentionally implied that Shepard was a subject worthy of study. While she still felt that way, she knew that her manner of approaching the situation was too clinical, and in light of this particular revelation the doctor felt even more sheepish. Liara attempted to explain her approach by telling the commander that her associations with people were limited, and even more so with humans.

"I've come to realize something about you, humans I mean. You are creatures of action. You pursue your goals with an indomitable determination. It is an admirable trait, but also an intimidating one."

Shepard seemed surprised by that description, but then saw the truth in it. To other races, the way humans tend to approach situations and problems could be construed as aggressive. Liara went on to explain. "Many see humanity as a bully that runs over anyone in their path to get to what they want. It's up to people like you to change their mind, Shepard," she added with a shy look. "You're the best of what humanity has to offer."

The commander shrugged off the assessment, rather humbly. It was one of the things she had come to admire about Shepard. She seemed unperturbed by opinions about her, rather she allowed her actions to speak for her rather than mere words. It was something Liara noticed not only in her own dealings with the commander but also in the reports and evaluations she had read in the commander's file.

With that revelation, Shepard slid off the desk and stood as well. "You looked up my file?" the commander asked, carefully looking at the asari with a trace of suspicion.

"I wanted to know more about you. To understand what made you into the woman you are. There is something compelling about you Shepard," Liara replied, closing the distance between them slowly. "You intrigue me. But I didn't think it would be appropriate to act on my feelings. I sensed--"

 

**/6/**

Shepard held up her hand and shook her head. She looked at the asari for a long moment, confusion tensing her brow. The officer was at a sudden loss for words or cohesive thought. Bright blue eyes blinked at her, holding an expectation that Nyx knew she could not meet, personally or professionally.

"Liara, look. I apologize, if I gave you the wrong impression. There are certain expectations placed on me as an officer."

Her mind stalled on that phrase. _Yes, expectations you've considered throwing out the window for someone else._ Nyx shook her head. Her mind was racing trying to figure out how the hell she had wound up in this position.

"I like to get to know the people I work with, especially those who I operate with closely. It makes it easier to trust someone with your life if you know a little about them. But I didn't intend--"

 "No, Shepard. I understand. Your kindness and friendship have made me feel welcome here. I merely … Perhaps we should just leave it at that?" Liara noted, the tinge of hurt and embarrassment still evident in her voice.

"Yeah. Maybe. That sounds good." Shepard picked up her coffee cup and took a long drink. _Holy hell. How did I wind up here?_

Liara looked at her and smiled sweetly. "I do hope for the best for you and the lieutenant."

 Shepard choked and spit coffee across the room and all over herself. She was coughing violently as the asari took her arm. "Are you all right Shepard?"

 "Fine," the human choked out. "Fine. But I think I'm going to go."

Shepard walked out of the lab unbuttoning her uniform blouse. As she reached the medbay doors, Nyx pulled her top off and wiped her hands on it. With a muddled brain, Shepard managed to walk headlong into Kaidan, very much flustered, partially in uniform and with the asari hot on her heels proffering her forgotten coffee cup.

"Thank you, Liara," Nyx said as she closed her eyes for a moment and turned back around. "Pardon me, Lieutenant," she greeted with great strain in her voice as she slid past him without more than a glance.

 She could not look, did not want to see the probable confusion on his face, though what he could possibly be thinking scared the hell out of her. She tossed the coffee-doused blouse on chair once she reached her quarters and fell face first onto her bunk.

"When did this get so hard?" she muttered into the blanket. _I've been on this ship too long. Need more shore leave. Even if it is just a day._ Surely that would be the answer. People would be able to find something else to focus their attention on--including her. She hoped.


	18. Hiding in Plain Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leave on the Citadel gets off to an interesting start all around, a bad morning with Udina improves quickly for Shepard. After an impromptu mid-day breakfast with Joker leaves Kaidan in a contemplative mood, the violet-hued views of the Citadel again prove a stunning backdrop for risky revelations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hugs and kisses to LadyA and Chy for their continued assistance. And thanks and appreciation to those of you still reading.

**18 Hiding in Plain Sight**

**/1/**

Anderson's evaluation of her work thus far was much kinder than the Council's, though Udina tended to mimic phrases and sentiments the galactic leadership leveled at her as if he had been privy to the conversations. Though the Captain had been a touch upset with her over cutting the comm link after Therum, she merely explained the impetus and that she wanted to make it clear to the Council that she would not allow them to cast aspersions at her crew. It was an argument he could not really find fault with. She thought about talking to Anderson about her newest burden of command, but changed her mind. Instead, she just wandered around the Presidium.

She found herself leaning against the balustrade of the walkway just below the mass relay statue in the middle of one of the artificial lakes on the presidium. Shepard just stared at the water, barely attentive to the low hum that seemed to emanate from the piece of art nearby. Her mind ran circles around her heart, as she tried to resolve an issue she was not quite sure how to deal with.

Thinking back on the scene from that morning, her standing there with her uniform blouse in her hand with Liara following with her coffee cup, made her groan inwardly. Maybe she worried over nothing. The insinuation of that little scene could very well have handled the situation for her. But her mind still centered around that encounter, around the confused look on his face as she looked back up at him for that split second before she walked away with barely a word. Shepard could only imagine what he must have thought. And it pained her to think she might have hurt him.

Leaving him there speculating about the scene that played out was cruel, but she did not know how to deal with her own feelings, let alone the revelation about his. Nyx's past "relationships" really weren't. She jokingly told Lin a long time ago that she was "just one of the guy's." And at times she acted the part. Neither virtuous, nor promiscuous, there were few attachments in her past, but only one she had the gall to call an actual relationship--Kevin Donnelly, when she was eighteen. He might have loved her, and she had cared about him, had enjoyed being around him. But she wanted her career more than a big-hearted, doe-eyed farm boy from the colonies. That was what it had always came down to for Shepard--her career, the mission, the priority objective--and at eighteen her priority objective had been special forces not hearth, home, and family.

Neil came close to relationship status. He always joked that his interest was like hero worship--she had saved his life on Elysium. But after a few years of seeing her for a day or two during leave, even he had started to want more. He told her he could get used to waking up next to her. The next morning Shepard made sure she was not there when he awoke. He was beautiful and he was sweet, but she could see nothing more with him than they already had. For her he existed in that limbic space, not quite a friend, but also not someone she could fall in love with either. He was just there, comfortable, and a little bit adoring.

Walking out on him was a no-brainer. Shepard left his apartment in Dallas and returned to the only real man in her life at the time, her Command Chief--but her relationship with Dave Jensen was a strange combination of paternal and fraternal that never crossed either line. She did not see Jensen in a romantic way. To her he was just the chief, eventually he became her friend and she came to be able to tell him anything without fear of judgment, much like she had Tali'Zorah. And he and Caz were probably the only two people truly familiar with both sides of Nyx Shepard: the woman and the marine.

Shepard thought about trying to get in touch with Lin, but she knew what her friend would say. Lin Apraxin would be giddy and happy that Nyx was showing more than just a carnal interest in someone. Then her advice would likely be to throw caution to the wind and go for it. Any officer she knew well enough to ask would suggest the opposite, not worth blemishing two fine careers over something that could just be a fling.

_But what if there's more to it? Nyx was almost certain what she felt could be something viable_. She shook her head. Flings had never made her question her goals. Alenko made her ask questions she should not, made her wonder how much support the Alliance would still lend if she retired. Then regs be damned, she might be able to retain her squad without the possible interference of the Uniform Code. Of course, she would prefer not to have to take that route, though Shepard knew it was purely selfish and highly unlikely in any event.

As she continued to consider things, she wondered where on the spectrum Caz and Jensen might fall. Admittedly she was not keen on broaching the topic with either for fear they might lean toward the side of logical reason. Over her time in the service, Jensen had been her sounding board, sparring partner, and mentor; for her, his opinion would be tantamount and part of her feared knowing his opinion on the situation. Too many times he had been the one to jerk her back to herself. And deep down there was a part of her that did not want to be jerked back from this line.

Caz was a little gentler in his typical approach to her, but she trusted his opinion on matters personal and professional. He had been through all her relationships with her, listened to her and understood when she talked about why she could not do it, could not be what they asked of her. Of course, deep down Nyx knew what he would say. It was what he always said. _Is it what you want?_ He was a big proponent on directing your own path, mainly because his life had been shoved off course for him, and by the time he realized he could have changed it back he had already lost the thing he wanted most. That was exactly what Caz would say to her, she realized thinking about he and Lin and everything he lost for a decision that was not his own.

_Is it what you want?_

The quick chime from her wrist brought her out of the reverie. Upon noticing the message her eyes brightened.

 

**/2/**

The place was small and quiet; the dim lighting was nice, it reminded the pilot of the cockpit. And the food wasn't bad either. Joker was sipping his coffee as he waited for the large platter of eggs and assorted breakfast meats he had ordered. He did not care that it was three in the afternoon to his internal clock. He had a craving for real damn bacon, not that crap that played the part on the ship toward the time for resupply.

He glanced over curiously as Alenko fell into a chair beside him. "Wow, you look like hell," the pilot greeted, taking another drink.

Kaidan glared at him for a second before setting his face in his hands.

"That good? Let me guess. This is about Dr. T'Soni and the half-dressed, disheveled commanding officer."

The glare intensified and Joker just chuckled into his cup.

"You are too easy to read, Alenko."

"Am I totally missing something?" His question was tinged with something more pressing.

Joker shook his head with a slight shrug. "Look, Commander Shepard knows everyone on the ship. Guys I know say she takes the time to learn everyone's name and something about them. The people she works with most, she's friendlier with. They also say she doesn't like to swim in the company pool." The revelation did not seem to settle his friend's nerves. "I'm not speculating, but you know rumors on a ship tend to be just that. Hell, there are still rumors that you're pining for Williams and the quarian, but those aren't nearly as popular as the ones about you and Shepard. Though my favorites are the ones about Williams and Garrus."

"What?" the lieutenant asked with a shocked look. "Really?"

Joker laughed as his plate arrived. The waitress refilled the pilot's cup and the one in front of the biotic as she looked that the dark-haired marine expectantly. Kaidan simply told her to bring him the same thing as Jeff and she left. Once she was far enough away, the conversation resumed.

"Yeah. It's hilarious given her known lack of love for aliens." Joker nodded as he chewed.

He noticed the amused smile shift to something else. Just the night before the pilot overheard two of the female crew speculating that the commander was a frigid bitch and was just stringing Kaidan along. Jeff did not figure that bit of information would do all that much for his friend's current state and kept it to himself.

Joker leaned forward and gestured at the lieutenant with a piece of warm, crisp bacon. "Why don't you just stop pussyfooting around? I mean, I know regs, but they all seem to read top down. Not bottom up. Surely if you instigate--"

"Doesn't matter who instigates it. The perception remains the same. Two people in the same chain of command, especially at different levels …" he said shaking his head. "It creates instability and interpersonal issues for personnel within that chain. Concerns about unit cohesion, mainly." Alenko rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead.

Joker looked at him pointedly. "Fuck! Did you memorize that shit out of the manual?"

Kaidan chuckled uneasily. "No. Just read it a few dozen times, I guess. As if reading the regs over and over would make it any easier." When Alenko looked over at him the veil fell completely. "I don't know what I'm doing, man. This is not me."

Joker shook his head. This was not his area of expertise either. He stayed far away from women in uniform, unless they were nurses. But the pilot really did feel a little sorry for his friend. He could see that the staff lieutenant was in deep and he was drowning in it.

"Alenko, you've got it bad," the pilot laughed.

"Fuck you, Joker."

Kaidan's plate arrived and there was another forced silence waiting for privacy to return to the table. Joker wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned forward, speaking a little quieter. "I'm serious. This is tearing you up. You care about her. It's almost sweet. But you won't do a damn thing about it because you're you. Like you said way back when, the Alliance is where you belong. It kind of sucks that now it's interfering with what you want and making you miserable as hell. Though I can't say I'm surprised that it's another marine that's got you all twisted up so that you can barely keep your head above water."

Alenko stared at him. "It's not that bad."

Joker stabbed a bite of fluffy scrambled eggs with his fork. "How long did you sleep last night? Two, three hours tops?"

Kaidan didn't say anything.

"How many migraines have you had in the last week? Worse than usual?"

"I don't get migraines because of Shepard."

"Not saying you do. But _someone_ ," he said the word staring pointedly at Kaidan, "did tell me once that they are induced by stress, physical and mental. And your mental stress is affecting the level of physical stress--i.e., the not sleeping." Joker set his cup down. "Seriously man. You need to just do something about it, even if she totally pushes you away. You can't keep going like this."

Kaidan held his fork for a moment and stared at the tines. "She said I wasn't out of line. But there are regs."

When Alenko closed his eyes for a few seconds, Moreau just stared at him. He had not been expecting that little revelation. He thought about it for a long time as the taller man stayed silent.

"Almost worse than wondering--knowing she feels something similar but can't do anything about it either," the biotic relented.

"Fuck 'em." Joker's response was instant and final.

"Come again?" Alenko looked a little surprised as Jeff's decision.

"Seriously, screw the regs. They're there in the first place to keep nasty old flags of the sweet young yeomen anyway."

"I think there is a little more to it than that," Alenko added. "Like a little thing called favoritism."

"Yeah, in Shepard's book, favoritism is getting to go get shot at," Joker said deadpan. "Look, I've talked to people. The commander doesn't play favorites, even with people she's worked with for years. Everyone gets the same consideration." He shrugged again and continued. "Hell, her unit is barely Alliance anyway--just you, her, and Williams. Plus, it kind of seems like there might be some leeway with her being a Spectre and all."

"She's still Alliance, Joker," the lieutenant said, shaking his head. Just like Kaidan, she'd always be Alliance--Alenko had said it too many times before. The Alliance was where he belonged. "It's in her blood. It's who she is."

"Yeah, but it's not all she is. It's not all you are either." The pilot popped the last bit of bacon in his mouth. "It's like that shit about her socks."

Kaidan looked at him curiously. The look told the pilot his friend had missed that little display.

"Crosby asked what was up with the crazy socks. She said it was her way of not losing who she is to the uniformity of it all. It's like you and how you tweak that omnitool. No one else would have a clue what to do with that thing and it's not standard issue--it's all you." Joker sipped his coffee then stroked his stubbly beard. "And I have this baby. As much as the Alliance wants us to be, none of us are standard issue."

"Still doesn't change the fact that standard issue or not, the regs still apply to us all."

"You're not seeing the big picture. This isn't just some typical commanding officer, Alenko. This is Commander-fucking-Shepard. Hero of the Skyllian Blitz. N7 stand out. One of the most prized operators in the Alliance. And…" Jeff held up his hands. "Wait for it… The first human Spectre. She's got the kind of juice regs can't touch, well, the little ones anyway."

Alenko smiled at his friend's display as he took a long swig of the passable coffee. "You're forgetting one thing, Joker. She might be all those things. But I'm not. The regs will still clamp down on me."

"Damn, Alenko. You're the next most decorated officer on the boat next to her. And, shit, even if they did jump on you over it, she could pull some Spectre shit and cancel it all."

"Have you met Shepard?" Kaidan shook his head. "She wouldn't. She doesn't see herself the way other people see her. Besides that's not her style."

"I think you underestimate yourself, my friend. According to most of the female crew, you're worth breaking all sorts of regulations for."

Joker laughed wildly as Alenko nearly choked on a mouthful of his meal. The blush of embarrassment just made the pilot laugh that much harder. He'd noticed some of the exchanges between Alenko and Shepard since they put out from Arcturus and he was fairly certain that what might have started as glances toward an attractive member of the opposite sex might well have become something more akin to substantial feelings for one another. He felt a little badly for both of them.

They were picture-perfect soldiers; followed the rules to the letter, got the job done as cleanly and safely as possible. They were, literally, the pride of the fleet. And Joker was also well aware that when you push yourself that hard for something letting it go was difficult. For them to even try to be together, they would both have to loosen their grips on the thing that defined them. He did not envy either them, but in a way he did. To care about someone or something enough to let it drive you that crazy--

Jeff thought about it for a long moment. He wasn't sure he would be able to do it if the decision were before him. _Give up flying for a woman_. He shook his head. _She'd have to be one hell of a woman_. Then he looked over at Alenko who was silently contemplating his plate. _Of course, Shepard was one hell of a woman. Strong, smart, decisive._ Moreau found himself rather hoping his friend would throw caution to the wind and go for it, though he doubted it would be anytime soon. Alenko was careful, controlled, and, in Joker's opinion, overly cautious, but he was pretty sure that eventually the lieutenant might step up to bat and take a swing. Jeff just refused to bet on who might get up the nerve first--Alenko or Shepard--there did not seem to be anyway to predict that one.

 

**/3/**

This type of rare aligning of the stars, almost never happened. Captain Taranis Shepard managed to have a romantic dinner with his wife Hannah less than two weeks ago on Arcturus Station, because his deployment was delayed by, of all things, a malfunctioning refrigerator in the galley. Then he was lucky enough that his ship docked at the Citadel ten hours before the _Normandy_ arrived. By a miracle, his daughter happened to not be tied up at Fleet. He managed to secure two rather lush armchairs in a back corner of the shop and ordered them both tea, as well as something wonderfully sweet … _to share_. Or at least that was what he told the wary salarian barista at the counter, and what he would tell Nyx, though he knew full well his sweet tooth was much more prominent than his daughter's.

Taranis heard her before he saw her. The polite apologies that were painted with a note of authority that made people step out of her path. _She always did make an impression in uniform_ , he thought when he caught sight of her in her blues. As a girl, Nyx would tromp around their quarters in his dress coats and hat, giving off the sharpest salutes--almost as professional as the one she gave him when she reached him. Uniforms be damned, he had not seen his girl in too long he realized when she beamed at him.

He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her into a tight embrace. Typically when he acted all paternal in public or in uniform she would stiffen up on him, but this time her embrace rivaled his. It was Taranis' first indication that something was askew. Nyx rarely clung to anyone, it was something he chalked up from growing up on ships where everything was sectioned off, even people.

"Your mother was bragging that you called her first," he whispered against her forehead as he pecked her just below the hairline.

"Don't be too distressed, Da. Did she also tell you it was about an old crewmate of hers?" Nyx asked, looking up at him.

"Eventually," he admitted with a chuckle.

"She made you sweat it, huh?" Nyx laughed lightly and scooted around the low table to the other chair he had secured.

"Doesn't she always?"

He could hear the strain in the practiced calm of her voice. It was one of the things he missed about his daughter--the vibrancy, in her eyes, her voice, her actions. Once she joined the service this calm seemed to creep in; she became the button-downed marine that everyone could count on, who everyone could look to. The captain had spent enough time with a combat unit to know it was not all in response to the job, some of it was a reaction to it.

"Mom said you sounded a little stressed. Told me I should try to raise you myself, since you hadn't called me yet."

"Yeah. That sounds about right." The commander shook her head, her lips a tight line as she leaned forward and picked up the tea cup.

Taranis could hear the irritation. She and her mother still crossed swords, even on the little things. Of course he knew the main reason why. In more ways than any of them would ever admit too, Nyx favored Hannah. Part of him wondered how he had managed to weather a life with two such strong-willed and determined women in his life, but he loved them both more than he could even fathom. He was the one that heard it all, from both of them, Nyx and Hannah only rarely talked; and since their daughter enlisted, the two only talked shop and even that was rare given Hannah's chosen route on the line and Nyx's in the field.

"I don't know. There might be something to it."

"It's just work, Da. Really. I'm fine. Just have … a lot on my plate." Her eyes met his for a moment, before redirecting to her cup.

Taranis watched her for a long moment. "I remain unconvinced, Nyxy-girl." He knew his daughter well enough to notice something was off even if this conversation had taken place over a comm line. Seeing her just made it easier to pick up on.

"That's because you're my father," Nyx said, leaning back in the chair. "It's in your job description to be pushy and _know_ things."

"True," Taranis agreed, stabbing at the silky slice of cheesecake with a stunning drizzle of sweetened and reduced cherries . "But I also know your usual brand of stressed, doll. And this seems a little more overwhelming."

The light ring of the ceramic drew his attention to his daughter. "I am running for two teams now. One would expect some extra strain."

The two Shepards watched one another for a long moment, before Taranis returned his attention to one of the soft cherries. The commander sighed, sipping her tea quietly while the captain waited. It was his usual tactic. He knew there was more and he could always wait her out. Nyx would talk to him in her own time, even if it had to be in carefully crafted abstractions. His daughter knew the drill. Taranis' methods were nothing new to her. He would take long pauses, allowing her to consider all the things she was not telling him. Then he would ask careful questions in case it was actually related to her current or a classified assignment--since need to know could interfere with her desire to disclose and his fatherly curiosity.

Whatever it was, Nyx held onto it much longer than usual, which told him she really did not want to bring it up. Despite this, Taranis knew she would relent because she kept glancing over at him with a look that suggested she was merely trying to find the way to bring it up. Nyx always came first for him; he redirected his career to give her the life she had, a life where there was always one parent there to hold her tight when things weren't just so. He knew it was not perfect, but he did everything he could to be there for her.

Nyx sighed as she set the tea cup on the table between them. "Fine," she breathed heavily.

It took another few moments for her to look up at him. Then she scooted a little closer, lowering her voice in discretion. Watching her carefully Taranis could not quite be sure what she was going to say, but she bit her lip and winced a little when she finally asked a question he never expected to hear.

"What did you do when you met Mom?"

Everything froze for a second or two as he stared at her. The little blush on her cheeks threw her father for a loop, but made him smile. "Well, damn."

The commander shook her head at him, trying to discourage him from thinking too hard about what she had just asked.

"Answer the question, please."

Captain Taranis Shepard rubbed his hand through the short stubble on the back of his head as he stared at his daughter in stunned silence. "I avoided her. Tried to just keep my distance. I even put in for a transfer," he admitted with a wry smile. "It got denied because I did not put in what command thought was a valid reason. Then, on leave, I talked to your Grandpa Shepard about it."

Nyx smiled and laughed. "And what did the old devil dog have to say about that?"

Her voice held a note of disbelief that her father was not surprised to hear. Taranis' father was a stickler for rules, regulations, expectations. He was strict and set high expectations. The captain could tell by the way his daughter eyed the dregs in her tea cup that she was as completely unprepared for what her father was about to say as Taranis had been when he heard it.

"He told me it was not a weakness to want someone to be part of your life."

Nyx's eyes darted to his. She was easily as shocked as he had been. Moving the tea cup, Taranis laid her hand out in his and covered it with the other.

"I told him all the things, I'm pretty sure you're telling yourself right now. All the excuses about regs, concerns, and bad experiences and stories you've heard," Taranis said quietly as he stroked the back of her hand lightly.

She leaned toward him. Her voice was tight with emotion. "And?"

Holding her hand tightly, her father smiled at her softly. "He told me that there are some things that outweigh the regs."

They were both quiet for a moment as Nyx let herself fall back in the chair. Her mind was clearly racing. Kirk Shepard had always stern, at best; he still was totally by the book in everything except when he met his wife. That was the only rule Taranis could think of his father ever even bending, let alone breaking out right. Nyx had been very close with both her grandfathers; she respected them as men and as marines. For her they were role models, people she that influenced her greatly.

"I'm going to tell you something you probably don't know. My parents met in the service, too. We Shepards seem to fall for our brethren," he said playfully. Nyx did not look relieved in the slightest. "He almost lost her on a mission. Even in love, your grandfather was still the same man. He couldn't justify risking the primary objective. The mission at all costs, you know?"

Taranis knew she understood it. Hell, he knew she lived that decree just as solidly as his father.

"She made it out alive, barely. Your grandfather, sentimental bastard, proposed to her when she woke up from surgery. Grandma Amelie was just as stoic as he was. Told him she would consider it, but only if he promised to do always put the mission first, even if she was in his command. She believed him when he said he would. Even lived up to it. Had to put her at risk once more in the field before they got married."

"And he told you this when you asked him about Mom?"

"Yep," Taranis said, nodding as he studied his daughter's reaction. "I was rather hoping I wouldn't have to tell it to you, but I guess it was too much to hope you'd break the trend of falling for servicemen."

She shrugged and looked at their hands for a long moment. "Seemed to be going well for a while," Nyx said quietly.

"Just tell me it's not the Zingel kid."

Her laugh made him smile, and brightened her eyes. "No, it's not Caz."

Taranis leaned back in his chair, fidgeting with his uniform for a moment. "So, tell me something about this fella."

The way she tilted her head at him suggested that the question might have been her maximum.

"At least tell me his name so I can start checking up and get a little peace."

"Da."

"Fine." Taranis let his hands fall on the arms of his chair. "Don't relieve your old father of the undue stress he is now placed under worrying about what kind of man his plucking his daughter's heart strings."

"Seriously?" she replied with a doubtful look.

They both knew she did not see herself as the type of woman who was plucked, but Taranis had a long and vivid memory and he could still recall the girl with the romantic sensibilities.

"What? I remember the shelves of Austen, Gaskell, and the Brontes. Then there were the sonnets your grandmother always sent you. And if I recall you were planning on marrying Captain Wentworth." He tilted his head at her slightly. "Perhaps I should have seen this coming after all."

They both laughed. Then Nyx sprang forward and hugged her father around the neck. "I've missed you, Da."

"I love you, Nyxy-girl."

Her lips were warm on his cheek. "Love you, too," she repeated before she stood. "I should probably go."

"We should do this again," her father offered, as he stood and proffered his arm. "Soon."

His daughter smiled and looked away for a moment. "Sure. As soon as I can."

Once they exited the little shop, they stopped and he touched her cheek before he bent and kissed her forehead again. He did not like her chosen phrase. Taranis knew she meant it, but he also knew the schedule she had kept for the past several years and there was little hope of relief given the most recent change.

"I'd prefer sooner," he noted.

It always killed him to say what he said next, the phrase was tradition, but always made his heart ache because he knew there was always a chance that he could lose his girl in the line of duty. He had been in her boots and hung them up for her. She had taken them up with fervor and so much more skill and determination than Taranis ever possessed.

"Good hunting, Commander," he said, a waver in his voice, as he saluted her sharply.

Nyx returned it as smartly as she would to an admiral. "Thank you Captain."

Taranis watched the girl with her mother's hair and his eyes weave through the crowds in the wards. He remembered meeting a boy once, at her basic graduation. _Keith or Kyle or something that started with a K._ He managed to stick around until a few months after her graduation from Exeter. Somehow the kid had stuck it out through three mission deployments before the relationship ended without so much as a whimper. The captain could not remember his name or much else about him. Even after a few years together, his daughter never hinted at the question she just asked. It elated and scared the hell out of him.

 

**/4/**

Shepard hoped the short leave might help elevate some of the tension that was overcoming most of the crew, which seemed to be heightened in her squad. She had gotten a great piece of information from Garrus, and a quick chat with Officer Chellick got her access to a gym located in C-Sec. It was supposed to be for their forces only, but Chellick owed her one and pulled a few strings to get her in. The first morning on the Citadel, for her, was spent in offices being alternately growled at by Udina and defended by Anderson. By the time it was all said and done she really needed the access Chellick arranged for her.

Shepard set an alarm on her omnitool so she would not miss out on the little excursion to Flux she had heard so much about. She pulled the small silver box out of the kit she brought with her and removed her amp. Nyx wanted to pummel something, not fling it. She always found working a heavy bag more satisfying when she could mostly only draw on her own physical strength, when it was just her hands.

She stretched her lean body out and felt the effects of the last few months aboard ship. _I'm going to have to change up my routine. Need more time for physical training_. Since their last trip to the Citadel she stopped leading the marine detail's PT, leaving it to Alenko. She shook even the merest thought of him from her mind. She did not want to fight with that right now, she just needed a little time where her mind could rest and calm down, before she had to return to the reality of the situations she faced. She tried to shake the tension out of her limbs as she bounced on the balls of her feet, shaking her hands loose as she eyed the bag.

"I'll get to you, don't you worry," she whispered to the bright red target.

After a little time on the weight machines, the commander moved toward the treadmill, but the five mile run she planned on ended just over four. She shook her head at herself as she hopped off and crossed the room. She taped up her hands before turning towards the heavy bag. Several turians, a few salarians, and three humans came and went in the time she spent in the security officers' gym. A few spoke to one another, but they all ignored the human female in the corner, which was the reason she chose this spot and not another. Being overlooked that afternoon made the officer happier than she really wanted to admit. She was rather glad to be ignored. She disregarded the time, merely hammering at the bag until she felt the familiar ache in her back and shoulders. After which she cut her hands loose and opted to cool down with another more leisurely jog.

She had been running for about twenty minutes when he door opened again. Chellick walked toward her. "I pulled some strings," he said as he stopped near her machine. "Got you access, whenever you're on station."

Shepard stopped and flipped on her omnitool as he transferred the access codes from his device to her own. "Appreciated."

"Least I could do. And Garrus put in a good word." She laughed with a half-smile. Chellick nodded. "He's a good man. He's been missed."

"I'll tell him," Shepard replied.

Chellick shook his head. "No, don't. He's doing what he needs to do. He's been struggling against the red tape for a while. Whatever you guys are doing out there seems to be helping." The turian offered her his hand, which she shook. "Good luck, Commander."

"Thank you, Detective."

She patted her neck and chest with a towel as she cleared the console on the machine. Her alarm had not rung yet, but she was done. Shepard took advantage of the showers in the locker rooms and donned a pair of jeans and a black tee. She tugged on the leather jacket, which was a few sizes too big. Like the knife she carried, it too had belonged to her grandfather, just a different one. The dark leather was supple, well worn, and patched in a handful of places, but it was warm and comfortable. In a way it felt like home.

On her way out of the C-Sec facility, her omnitool finally rang. It was the reminder about the last minute invitation to a haphazard congregation of her crew. Shepard was not one for crashing her crew's leave, but if they wanted her there she was loathe to decline. With a tightening in her shoulders she crossed the ward at a leisurely pace.

The _Normandy's_ crew had laid claim to the balcony above Flux's dance floor. Several crewmembers were enjoying the music, but everyone on the dance floor was giving Wrex a wide berth. Shepard could not help but laugh as she noticed the krogan dancing wildly. _Can't say I ever thought I'd see that_. She caught sight of Garrus leaning against the banister of the stairs and walked over to him.

"That's … something," she said lightly as she stopped next to him and turned to watch again.

Garrus nodded for a moment. "That's one word for it."

They both laughed. "Appreciate you taking care of that so quickly."

"No problem, Shepard. Just surprised Chellick was so helpful."

"I can imagine."

As she turned to head up the stairs, Wrex yelled, “Shepard!” and she froze midstride.

_Oh shit!_ She turned and caught the disturbing smile that lit the krogan's features in a devilish way. "No," she said flatly, shaking her head as she took a step away from him.

It was too late. Wrex grabbed her hand before she could escape and took several steps back, he pulled her forcefully and she landed against his chest as he set a hand on her waist. "Any female that can handle herself in combat like you must be a fine dancer."

"I assure you, Wrex, if that is the rule, I am definitely the exception to it."

He tried to lead her around the floor in some dance she could not follow. Then he spun her loose and danced next to her, while she just sort of shifted from one foot to the other lamely.

"Shake it, Commander," some brave soul yelled. But between the music, her embarrassment, and everything else, she was uncertain precisely who had said it. Though she guessed it could have been Private Nunez, he sometimes seemed to lack the censor of propriety that resided in most people's subconscious. Shepard humored Wrex for a few minutes more before fleeing from the dance floor and heading upstairs.

"He did the same thing to me," Tali said quietly when Nyx leaned against the wall next to her. "Though I think your performance out did my own."

"Not a lot of dancing in the Flotilla?"

"On the contrary, dancers are greatly esteemed by my people. I simply have not been blessed with any ability in that arena."

Williams fell against the wall in a smooth, controlled movement. "It's all about the partner," she offered unbidden. "Good dancers have great partners. Well, that's what my mom says anyway. She tried to teach me and my sisters." Williams shook her head as she looked at the krogan. "She said dancing was like a conversation, or a relationship, a lot of give and take," Ashley said rather absently, seemingly engulfed in the memory. She stood straight as if literally pulled back to the present. "But I'm not sure krogan speak that clearly."

The chief was called away and Tali leaned toward the commander, "On that last part, she may be right."

"You disagree with dancing being a conversation." Shepard had heard the saying before, but it seemed that was one language in which she had little fluency in. Despite desperate attempts by friends and lovers to teach her even a few words.

The quarian shook her head. "I'm not sure. Much of the dancing in my culture is ceremonial, celebratory. It serves the role of praising as well as entertaining, though not in the way of the females in Chora's Den. We prize the symmetry and fluidity of the body in motion, it is beautiful. But in those instances it is a solo endeavor, dancers do not dance together."

"Ever?"

"Dancers participate in the dances singly or in groups of varying numbers, but they do not dance coupled together like many of those people."

Shepard was intrigued and looked over at her friend. "So, quarians don't just dance with someone because they want to be close to them or what have you?"

"I've never seen it. There might be some who do, but it's not a display made in public in that case."

The commander just nodded as she stood and watched over the action. After less than an hour, though, she abandoned the bright pulsing lights and loud throbbing music. As she exited Flux, Lieutenant Commander Shepard stuffed her hands in her pockets and just wandered around in contemplative aimlessness, no rhyme or reason to her path. She found herself at the overlook and just stood there for a moment, taking in the view. _All those people, beings, just milling around living their lives, obliviously_. They did not know or care what she was doing or why. All that mattered is that she did and that she knew why.

_But what is my role? Where did I fit? And how?_ All these questions kept skirting the issue. Regardless of what she had to do? Why she did it? Who she did it for? Did she really have to exclude other things from her life? Or was there a way to have a life in the midst of the insanity of her career? Then she asked herself one last question--should I even be thinking this now?

_Destruction looms and I'm acting like some pining teenager. Does it really even matter? Chasing a rogue Spectre hell bent on bringing back some ancient race of xenocidal machines--that matters. With problems on that scale is it just plain selfish to distract yourself with questions like these? Does it really matter? So what if you want someone to be there beside you, there are bigger things at stake._

She stretched her arms across the thick wall and gripped the edge as she leaned forward, looking out at the bustling hub that was the center of galactic power. Shepard let go of the wall and settled back down on her feet. She let herself wander around a while longer, not quite ready to return to the ship.

Not surprisingly, the Citadel seemed to have its own cycle. Things in the lower wards weren't quite as bustling and she even managed to find a relatively quiet spot with a somewhat decent view. She closed her eyes and rolled her head around, trying to stretch out the muscles in her neck. She thought about what her father said about what he had done. He knew precisely how to deliver the information in a way she would need to hear it. He saw the strain of it all. Her father knew her.

Perhaps that was the key.

_You want someone to see you._

That's what Chakwas had said to her. Maybe a part of her wanted her crew to see past the uniform, get to see her as more than just Commander Shepard. Hell, Ashley had seen shades of it first hand when they ensured the release of Serviceman Bhatia's remains. But that was Shepard's way, she took care of her people as best she could. And there were times when Kaidan looked at her and Nyx was almost certain he could see past it all--the uniform, the command façade, the dedicated marine shell.

She folded onto the bench and leaned back as she stared out at the ward arms. Her mind was calmer than it had been for a while, but it was by no means still. Then again her mind was hardly ever still. People saw it, she knew, her interest in the staff lieutenant. Allowing herself to consider it again, she found it a little easier to consider in more distant terms. No one around her seemed to discourage the connection either, even those that should.

Everyone around her seemed to be trying to get her to set reason aside and follow her heart. They just did not understand how hard that was for her. She trusted her head and her gut--her heart never really came into the equation. People seemed to be trying to get her to look beyond her career, beyond her uniform. She crossed to the retaining wall and sighed out at the purplish hue that seemed to both surround and emanate from the Citadel.

Remembering what Caz would ask her, she whispered the question to herself as she dragged her fingertips over her forehead. "What do you want?"

"Shepard?"

Her heart jumped into her throat as her body tensed. The chances of it seemed to miniscule, like a twisted version of that old line from her grandmother's favorite movie-- _of all the dark, quiet corners on the Citadel, why'd he have to walk into mine?_ With a quick swallow, trying to lodge her rebellious organs back into their natural position, she turned and glanced at him.

A little smile played on her lips when she noticed he had gone civvie, too. His shoulders hunched slightly as he tucked his hands into his jean pockets as he moved in her direction.

"How's it going, Lieutenant?" Nyx asked, opting to toe the line.

"Good."

Alenko seemed to be pacing it out in his head; that tell tale calculating look creased his brow and told her his mind was racing at least as fast as hers. That look was usually reserved for the more troublesome systems they came across or for situations like this. He joined her near the wall, looking out on the vastness of this galactic hub that stretched out around them.

"Kind of surprised to see you down here, Shepard."

"Yeah. I could say the same." It felt so stiff, so unlike either of them. And a part of her wondered if maybe the scene that morning had been more detrimental than she feared.

He nodded knowingly, eyes moving from her back out to the view. "Leave going well?"

"Given that I spent the morning with Udina. No, definitely not."

"Ouch!"

She laughed lightly. "Yeah tell me about it." Her eyes met his again, the calculating look was gone and the familiar warmth that made her pulse quicken returned. "But I managed to turn it around."

 

**/5/**

Kaidan shifted, mimicking her relaxed posture. It had been a long time since he saw her out of uniform. Even despite that, he could still sense the danger he placed himself in, there alone with her, close to her. There were times in the field he when the temptation to act on his impulses was great, like leaning next to her, examining the map on her omnitool or his. In the Mako, it would be so easy then, with her sitting within arm's reach of him. So close, within his grasp, but never farther away than in those very same moments--wholly focused on the task at hand.

There at the outlook it would be even easier. There was no mission, no objective, no anomaly that needed to be scouted. It was just the two of them, mainly. While there were other beings in the area, the two of them were removed, secluded, overlooked. There in that quiet corner of the Citadel they were just two humans, even more innocuous due to the fact that for whatever reasons, they had both gone native so to speak. It was the first time since they met on Arcturus that they both had shed the trappings of their careers, of the Alliance. Even if it was only outwardly.

_It might not be much, but it was something,_ he thought.

The accusations he kept throwing at himself seemed to still in that moment. He took a step toward her and, unlike so many times recently, her gaze was constant. She looked up at him with those deep blue eyes--eyes that told him more than she had ever put into words. He saw it sometimes when they talked. Or when she looked at him and he accidently caught her gaze. In those moments it was fleeting; there one moment and gone the next, that hint of connection, presence, interest. Usually she would look away, or her attention would be redirected and the commander persona would slip back into place. But at that moment, there in the darkness of an abandoned corner of the Citadel, that usually fleeting look was steady, certain, and ever present.

When the thought cropped into his head, Kaidan went with it. _It's a chance worth taking,_ he reasoned. He had been playing the conversation with Joker over in his head since that afternoon. Considering those exchanges with Shepard that were making him feel a little on the certifiable side. He did not really care about the scene with the asari. He just needed to know, wanted to know if he was the only one willing to risk the things he had worked for.

His hand tightened and flexed at his side, even with the hint of resolve he had, it still took a moment to muster the strength to step over that invisible line that kept them apart. The moment his fingers touched her face, tracing the soft line of her jaw, Nyx closed her eyes and held her breath. There was minimal comfort in the visceral reminder that he was not the only one struggling their way through these depths.

"Kaidan," she breathed softly. Then she opened her eyes, he could see it, see her trying to regain control, pull them both back to reality. "What are you doing, Lieutenant?" Her voice lacked that usual steady air of command, instead it wavered.

His fingers stopped for a moment as he looked into her eyes. Alenko searched for it, the sign of the officer slipping back in place, the tell tale distance that always seemed to crop back up.

_Tell me to stop._

He willed her to deny him. That would make it all so much easier.

_Tell me this isn't want you want. Tell me I'm overstepping. Tell me something, anything_. _Push me away. I can handle that_. _But I can't keep going like this._

All he could see in her eyes was the tenderness that was there when they spoke privately, when no one else could see--the openness that was often there when she looked at him. He let his hand slide behind her neck, finally satisfied that maybe this crazy thing was not just his alone.

"Something that could ruin my career."

Shepard's eyes widened with realization as he leaned toward her, pulling her closer as he did so. His lips brushed hers with the barest hint of reservation. The lack of resistance in her body encouraged him. Repeating the gesture, she reciprocated. It was a slow and gentle exchange; soft kisses punctuated by her hand on his chest, his arm sliding around her waist, her fingers gliding along on his cheek.

Shepard broke the connection first, but she did not pull away. Her hand rested on the back of his neck as she leaned her forehead again his. Noticing her eyes were still closed he could not help the little smile as he wondered if she kept hers closed for the same reason he opened his immediately, afraid it was some wild daydream that would dissipate into the ether all too soon. When Nyx did look at him, she smiled; it was relaxed, easy in a way that made him hopeful.

 

**/6/**

It seemed her mind was not playing tricks on her. Kaidan was indeed there, gazing at her in that manner which made her almost afraid to look at him. When he looked at her like that, it was hard to breathe and she was almost certain that he could see _her_ \--see past the uniform, past the guns, past the career. Shepard leaned into him again, giving back the kind of certainty he offered her in his gesture and answering the question at the tip of both their tongues.

_Yes, I want this. I want you._

The way he pulled her closer, embracing her tightly against him, made her pulse pound through her veins as a sense of lightheadedness set in. This time when it ended, Nyx opened her eyes right away. The tension she noticed in his face recently seemed to have slid from his features. The tinge of worry that often clouded his eyes cleared. And she wanted to just huddle there in that warm sensation that ebbed through her as his thumb stroked her cheek, curving along the scar beneath her eye.

The calculating look eased back in as Kaidan left a little more distance between them. His voice deep and whiskey smooth, when he spoke. "I don't want to make things any harder on you. I don't want to complicate--"

Knowing it for what it was. Shepard darted upward on her tip toes, pressing her lips to his. A way out was the last thing she wanted. The moment he kissed her, Nyx knew it was all or nothing. For her there could be no caveats. She had done things halfway before. Halfway never worked, in the field or elsewhere she had found.

"Don't," she whispered between gentle kisses.

"Don't, what?" he asked, placing a break between them and looking down at her again.

She leaned back, giving a little more room, but not quite willing to relinquish his personal space. Recalling the conversations they had, she remembered his notation that she should always leave herself a way out. But she did not want one, even if it was safer to have one. If she was going to do this, Nyx knew she could not do so from the fence. "Don't give me a way out."

Kaidan seemed surprised. For a moment he looked to be considering the notion then he nodded, eyes brightening a little. "Okay. I won't." His fingertips lightly traced the shape of her ear, his gaze not wavering from hers. "You don't think this is insane?"

"Completely," Shepard agreed with a soft chuckle. She smoothed her hands over the cotton of his t-shirt across his shoulders. She bit her bottom lip and snapped the tight sleeve against his bicep.

The laugh and the look told her he remembered the night before the _Normandy_ put out quite as vividly as she did. As she let her fingers skim the edge of the fabric there against his arm, she considered it all. It was nuts. It might be just a little bit stupid. It even held a note of risk, especially considering they were both career officers. She found his calm amber eyes studying her when her head fell back again. _But in the end_ … "I think you're worth it."

"Couldn't agree more," he whispered, pulling her a little closer.

Leaning into him, Nyx wanted to lose herself to it--that feeling she fought, the desire, the warmth that smoldered there in his embrace.

 

**/7/**

The too cheerful ping of her omnitool separated them again; Shepard looked up at him apologetically. It seemed like a taste of what he just signed himself up for. They were both familiar enough with one another that he knew right off by the sound of the alert that the message she received would be marked priority. That particular alarm usually came accompanied by a groan or a roll of the eyes and orders, this time it was a shy bit of the lip and a regretful shrug.

"Sorry," she murmured as she took a few steps away and pulled up the message.

Alenko leaned against the retaining wall, resting his elbows against the lightweight polished metal. His mind raced through it all--the clarity of her reaction, the certainty of her resolve, and her realistic take on it. It was crazy, but he agreed with her. She was entirely worth it, he thought as he looked over at her. Her fingers moved across the interface, quickly drafting a response to whoever messaged her. She glanced up and caught him watching, the frenzy stopped for a moment as she smiled sweetly at him. The tender little acknowledgement was almost worth the interruption.

When she touched his shoulder softly, he could see that familiar struggle. "I have to go," she said with a wince.

"I know," Kaidan replied.

His smile bloomed when the surprise widened her eyes. He could see the question as if it were flashing in neon on her face.

"You could message me when you get done? Joker showed me this great little place that makes a decent breakfast, though the coffee leaves a little to be desired." When her lips pursed at him, Alenko ran this thumb across the thinned line and pecked her lightly. "I'll send you the directions. Let me know if you can make it."

"Okay," she replied. Her hand circled his arm, and when she pulled lightly, he kissed her softly. Before she got too far, she turned, adding, "It should only take a few hours."

The lieutenant might not have any idea what the hell he was doing, but he knew precisely who he was doing it with. He knew damn well that the scene that just played out was the barest beginning of the way this would work. Preferring that she would have stayed, Alenko knew she wouldn't, she couldn't, and he did not expect her to.

The lithe blond disappeared into a corridor; once he lost sight of her he turned and looked out at the ward arms. The similarity was not lost on him. He had made a fool of himself in a spot just like this, practically announced his fascination with stellar tact and in front of the chief. Laughing at himself he cradled his forehead in his hands. That part was something he knew to be unrepeatable, of course he had already pretty much failed at keeping his interest under wraps. It seemed foolish to hope he would be able to hide this.


	19. Dancing with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tempting fate can be an anxious prospect. A sense of comfort gives way to an impressive amount of strain. While a Spectre's work is never done, sometimes there is still room for a little play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: All the hugs to Chy and LadyA. Appreciate the patience of all the readers. Hoping once I finish up and at least solidify a probable outline for this piece, I can keep things rolling on this portion of Nyx's story. Thanks to all of you who are still reading, and enjoying this little excursion.

**19 Dancing with the Devil**

**/1/**

Glasses clinked, metal utensils rang against ceramic, and the din of distant conversation all hid amongst the somewhat soothing strains of jazz. Kaidan was oblivious to all of it as he spun the thick upside-down mug in small circles with his hand. In comparison, the knee bouncing beneath the table counted among the things the officer was wholly conscious of. His eyes locked on the swirling vessel as his mind raced and nerves fluttered turbulently.

_Why the hell are you uptight now?_ He asked himself, turning the mug again and concentrating on the round sound it made against the table top. _You kissed her and she didn't knock you out. Nor did she call up the regs this go around,_ he remembered with a wistful smile.

He laughed to himself softly, uncertain how it all actually happened. But it did not matter how, just that it did. Nodding his agreement with the thought, a little sense of ease seemed to creep along his tight shoulders. _Yeah.  This is just coffee. This is nothing compared to_ _…_ _that_.

Alenko did not really know how to classify the exchange that took place a few decks below and several hours earlier. Regardless, he could only be pleased it happened. Knowing was a damn sight better than wondering, wishing, and trying to read between the lines; plus it was nice to not have to wonder if there were any truth to the rumors.

Ships like the _Normandy_ were rife with tales, tidbits, and whispers speculating on what actually or could happen. The fact that there were rumors wandering the ship about he and Shepard, Shepard and Liara, hell, even about Shepard and Pressly; it was nothing knew or unexpected for cruising vessel. Kaidan was no stranger to that fact of ship life, nor was this the first post where he had been the target. Only rarely could scuttlebutt ever be considered with anything more than the barest grain of salt. _Though you just played right into it_. Surprisingly, Alenko really did not concern himself with that idea for long.

"Excuse me."

The lieutenant glanced up and a rather tall woman with vibrant pink hair beamed down at him.

"You're going to have to order something, or … you know," she shrugged almost apologetically.

"I'm, kind of, … waiting for someone."

Her smile evaporated. "Still. The manager doesn't like people just taking up tables."

"Will coffee get him off your back for a while?" Alenko asked, turning over one of the other cups at the table that he had not been toying with.

She huffed at him, but filled the cup. Kaidan grinned at her reaction and took a sip, wincing with the reminder of the huge drawback of the little diner tucked away in the wards. Within ten minutes she was back, this time with a pair of menus. Alenko managed to finish the cup of coffee before she popped up again, but this time his nerves had returned. He gropped at the datacuff on his wrist shifting it slightly as he fought the urge to key up his omnitool and check the message again, if for no other reason than the reassurance it would offer.

Before he could call it up, the waitress was looming over him. "I am sorry, sir, but --"

A quiet, yet powerful, "Pardon me," caused the woman jumped slightly and turn.

It was the tone in the voice that made him smile and the instant reaction even a civilian had to the delicate timbre. Shepard's voice held power--a whisper that could stop a krogan in his tracks was how the chief put it once.

"Coffee?" the taller woman offered, grabbing another mug and filling them both as the commander slipped around the waitress.

"Thank you," Shepard replied. She slipped off her jacket and hung it over the back of the chair before she sat down. Nyx leaned toward him, elbows on the table, smiling just enough to emphasize the apology in her eyes. "Sorry. Apparently I misjudged the ability of intelligence agents to blather on about nothing."

"I'm just glad you made it," he admitted as she leaned across the table for the sugar dish.

"Me, too. You want to hear something silly?"

"Sure."

She dropped a few spoonfuls of sugar in her cup and stirred it, tapping the spoon twice on the rim before setting it on a napkin. "I was a little worried you might not be here."

Kaidan leaned toward her. He found relief and not a little joy in the idea that he was not alone in his worry. "Really?"

That coy smile paired with the heat smoldering in her blue eyes made his mind race.

"I did say twenty minutes, nearly two hours ago," she said lowly, inching a little closer.

The tone was all wrong for the message, or at least it would have been in any other situation. "What can I say? Patience is a virtue. Plus, I figured something came up."

Copying her action, but a little more bodly, the lieutenant scooted his chair a little closer and rested his forearms on the table. Nyx laughed lightly, shaking her head at him, but it worked. Her cheek rose from the fist it rested on, and those nimble fingers skated along his jaw in a tempting fashion. Her soft lips tasted of the invisible pink balm she always had in her pocket--the sharp tang of raspberries tempered by the delicate scent of rose.

 

**/2/**

"So what can I get you two?"

Shepard noticed Kaidan's amused smile as he sat back, licking his lips. Nyx, however, had been perfectly content and turned her head toward the waitress with the bad timing.

"How about a moment?"

When the woman huffed, Nyx snapped her jaw shut and shook her head.

"Got anything chocolate?" the commander asked, caving in the hopes that the waitress might take the hint.

The woman did not leave, instead she stood there and rattled off the chef's half dozen offerings with even a hint of chocolate. Then proceeded to wait. The way his smile creased the corners of his eyes distracted the commander through most of it. If she had to guess, he was enjoying watching her sweat it, but he had dealt with two hours of the pink-haired waitress' efforts.

The roll of the young woman's eyes was not lost on the officer. Shaking her head, Nyx asked at Kaidan, "Are you allergic to walnuts?"

"No," he replied with the barest shake of his head, grinning at her the entire time.

"That brownie thing will work," Nyx told the waitress without averting her gaze. Part of her was hoping he might just be waiting for the intrusion to conclude to retake his former position.

Another irritated sigh punctuated the waitress' retreat.

"Did you torture that poor woman or what?" Nyx asked with a glance at her.

He shrugged and leaned near her again. "I did take up her table for more than an hour without ordering anything."

"From the looks of it, I guess you're lucky they didn't throw you out."

"You have no idea," Kaidan said warmly with a trace of a laugh in his voice. He winced as his mug returned to the table.

"What?"

"Like I said. Good food. Passable coffee."

The smile on her lips faded slightly after she braved a sip. "Salt, people. Just a pinch of salt," she muttered as she set the mug out of reach.

"It's not that bad."

"I've had better coffee in foxholes."

Kaidan seemed unconvinced.

"I'm entirely serious. That MRE coffee is sometimes the only decent thing in the entire kit," she advised with a smile.

Kaidan shook his head and only moved slightly when the waitress opted to slip between them again to set the plate on the table. Grabbing a spoon, Nyx swiped at the whipped cream with the tip of it, eying the lieutenant quickly. The way he watched her made her feel almost decadent.

"My grandfather always said you should eat desert first, because you never know when you're going to die," Nyx offered as an excuse for the dessert between them. Though she knew even that was not really an excuse for a warm moist chocolate brownie, vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream, and walnuts at 0500h.

She loved his laugh, when it was unrestrained. The warm rumble, with that smooth undertone that just naturally prompted those around him to smile, it was one of those little things about him Shepard tried to ignore because she did not want everyone to clearly see her growing interest in the staff lieutenant; although, she knew enough already had. The reminder of it, of the reality redirected her eyes to the shallow trail the tip of the spoon drew across the delicate melting dome of drizzled vanilla.

_What the hell are you thinking, Shepard? It's one thing to indulge in anonymity. But what's going to happen once you're back on the ship?_

"Not hungry?" he asked in that low voice she only heard him use on rare occasions, when he wanted to get her attention.

Shaking her head, she mumbled, "Just thinking."

"Should I guess? Or would you rather tell me?" There was a knowing in his voice, and she could tell by the knit in his brow that he was probably thinking along the same lines she was.

With a deep breath she set down the spoon. "How does this go?"

His laugh was full, like she surprised him with the question. "I have no idea," Alenko said shaking his head.

"Me either," she revealed as she leaned back in the chair, her fingers tapping lightly against the table top. Neither of them spoke for what seemed an inordinately long period. "Not like I can treat this like a mission with thin intel."

He smiled slightly, then she noticed that calculating look of his. "Why not?"

She felt her eyebrows furrow at the question.

Kaidan moved toward her again. "What do you do in that situation?"

"Improvise, overcome, adapt." Shepard's instant and instinctual regurgitation of that phrase heard so often in trianing prompted his laughter again.

"Exactly. We'll just have to figure it out." His hand was warm around hers as his thumb traced a light pattern on the back of her hand.

"Sounds like a heck of a plan."

Nyx bit her bottom lightly tightly as she closed the distance between them a little more. "This can't affect the team," she said cautiously.

"Agreed."

Her breathing seemed to come a little easier, but she knew she had one more caveat. "Or the mission."

This one seemed harder for them both to agree on, but he nodded, seeming to understand. "We might also want to exercise a little restraint," he added, glancing down at their hands. "You know how scuttlebutt can be."

Nyx smiled. "Don't we all. Though I seem to be out of the loop on most of it now."

"Consider yourself lucky," Alenko cautioned.

"That good huh?"

"Depends on who you ask," Kaidan said with a telling smirk before he leaned back and released her hand. Her eyes followed his, and turning she noticed a trio of familiar faces, though at that precise moment the names eluded her.

"How about we find some real coffee?" Shepard suggested.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll settle up and meet you outside."

 

**/3/**

Shepard really did not think anything of returning to the _Normandy_ with the lieutenant in tow. At least until the elevator door opened and Nyx noticed the flag officer standing outside her ship. It was like the universe itself had aligned to instantly remind her of what she had chosen to ignore. The quick glance she cast at Kaidan before they moved out onto the dock suggested his thoughts might be running the same path as her own.

"Sir," Alenko stated as he came to attention a step behind her.

When she stopped and snapped to, the admiral turned and looked her up and down. "Lieutenant Commander Shepard, sir, Commanding Officer of the _Normandy_. Can I help you?"

"Rear Admiral Anatoly Mikhailovich. Sixty-Third Scout Flotilla with the Fifth Fleet. I'm here to conduct a spot inspection on the _Normandy_."

Shepard nodded for a moment and tried to recall anything regarding a visit from Fleet on the schedule for the day. Certain she would have remembered this, Nyx nodded and gestured toward the vessel. "Of course, sir. I'm sure you'll find her up to par. I do know that my Executive Officer is on the bridge. Pressly would be more than happy to assist you in securing you anything you need."

"Thank you for your cooperation, Commander. I'll find you when I conclude my duties here."

When the airlock closed, she tapped up her omnitool and warned her navigator as she walked back up the gangway toward the dock. "And admiral or not, do not leave that man alone anywhere on that ship. Stick to him like white on rice."

" _Yes, ma'am_."

Nyx swallowed hard at her irritation and the concern traipsing through her head.

"Put a call into Anderson's office and see if we were scheduled for a surprise inspection or if I'm dealing with something else here," she said to Alenko as she reached the pier.

_What the hell are you thinking, Nyx? Not smart. Walking back to the ship with your junior officer in civvies._ She shook her head as she reached the end of the dock and leaned against the railing. _That will be a nice line in the inspection. Commanding officer arrived with a guilty conscience trading awkward glances with the head of her marine detail, both out of uniform._ She could almost hear the questions from the inquiry. Every team she ever led was going to be scrutinized. _Is this a habit Commander? How many of your subordinates have you fraternized with? Do you make a habit of seducing the men under your command?_

Nyx groaned and pushed away from the banister in frustration when she turned she noticed Kaidan leaning against a crate observing her.

"This isn't about the surprise inspection, is it?" he asked, gesturing absently between them.

"Look. I…"

"I know. You think you're the only one that tensed up when they saw the stripes?" Kaidan shook his head and ran his hand across his forehead. "And we're just standing there. Both out of uniform, being totally oblivious."

The two of them stared at one another for a moment.

"Are you worried?" she finally asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Shepard was sure he would know it for what it unconsciously was: a protective gesture. The tightness in her shoulders told her that even though her mind had been racing with her own over reaction, she wanted him not to be in the same place. In a way, Nyx was hoping he was certain enough to convince her--again.

"We're on leave. A lot of the officers have been out of uniform over the past thirty hours. Why would either of us be any different?"

The comparison to anyone else on the ship was reasonable, but the way he looked at her contradicted every logical, innocuous word. He held out his hand to her and she took it. The movement was quick and left her giggling despite the slight sting that ran up her spine from hitting the crate a little harder than either expected. Kaidan peeked over the top of the crate. Satisfied, he leaned his arm against it and loomed over her.

Having him in her personal space, wearing that intense gaze, intoxicated her. One thing was certain in her mind as she lost her worries in the warmth of his amber eyes--Alenko tempted her in ways no one else had in too long. When his fingertips grazed her cheek, Shepard turned into the touch, wanting more than the scant brush it offered. He must have read that in her reaction because it prompted him to set his whole hand on her cheek. The comfort in that simple touch, his skin on hers, overwhelmed her a little.

_Perhaps it is_ _…_

Looking up at him, she could not finish the statement. Shepard wanted it to be easy to define she wanted this to be something she could classify and predict--every other man she had known was so easy to read, so simple to categorize. The family man. The walking hormone. The guy who did not have a clue. As he leaned over her, thumb stroking her cheek softly while he studied her, Nyx found no generalization that seemed to fit him. When he closed the distance between them, her gasp betrayed her. Anxious, surprised, and completely willing, her response revealed the dichotomy she suffered--even if she wanted this, even if she crossed that line, Shepard still harbored concerns about the same. They were not all selfish either.

Mikhailovich could find the crew of the _Normandy_ running through the cargo hold naked with active blow torches and he still could not touch her. Hell, Shepard could have come back to the ship from a successful shift at Chora's Den in a thong and his report on that would fall on deaf ears, mostly. Certain things were official and set in stone, she learned from the archivist at the Spectre Offices shortly after her induction. Unless the Council revoked her status, her position was secure. And the only way the _Normandy_ would revert back to official Alliance control was if Shepard chose to relinquish command of the vessel.

In reality, for her, little was at stake. Sure her reputation might take a hit. She could lose her commission. As her fingertips grazed the bare flesh at the base of his throat, just above his collar, Shepard knew most of the risk was his--his career, his standing, his rank, hell, in too many ways his future--everything hung in the balance. For her, it was mostly about familiarity, the path she chose and planned her world around. For him, the destructive potential of this relationship could prove enormous.

"Perhaps, we should exercise a little more caution," she said when the kiss broke.

"That is a reasonable suggestion."

"I did not think about things like this. Admirals just popping up for a tour of the ship or an evaluation of the crew."

"Neither did I." He smiled at her, as he watched his fingers glide over her ear then down her neck.

As much as she wanted all of it to continue, Nyx straightened. "I should probably wait for the admiral."

Kaidan smiled, reading the unvoiced suggestion. For good measure, he kissed her again. She held onto his waist lightly as he cradled her face in both his hands. When he rested his forehead against hers, she blinked up at him.

"God, I hope we get leave again soon," he admitted in a rather husky voice.

The sentiment made her smile. "Judging from the schedule Pressly sent me this morning. Not likely."

"Ugh," he groaned playfully.

"We'll manage it," she suggested, repeating what he had said over tea after leaving the diner.

"Indeed." With that he took a few steps backward up the dock. "Enjoy the view, Shepard."

Nyx was fairly certain Alenko meant the view of the Citadel from the edge of the dock. As she watched him walk up the deck, she was sure he did not mean the sight of him walking away, which was precisely the view captivating her until he turned up the gangway. Shepard tucked her hand in the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the small palm-sized book that she always kept there. The collection of poetry given to her by her father's mother, Maman, when Nyx completed Special Forces Training. Amelie Shepard had carried that exact volume with her everywhere, and so had Nyx for a while. But it had been a long time since that tattered, well-worn book visited any field of battle. Hell, Shepard could not remember the last time she had even held it let alone perused its pages.

Crossing her arms she leaned against the railing near the busy little typing bug thing. She studied the creature silently for a few minutes. She even considered talking to it once or twice, but erred on the side of not giving anyone any more reasons to question her sanity.

 

**/4/**

The lieutenant took long, slow, deep breaths as he waited for the airlock's decontamination procedure to run its course. The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster of sorts, all culminating in the anxious exchange with an admiral. Kaidan could not remember clearly the last time his stress level was quite so high. The tension of returning to the ship to find a high ranking line officer waiting after having spent the previous two hours flirting and discussing the logistics of trying to work out plans for figuring out a relationship with his commanding officer on an Alliance vessel clung to him. The tightness in his upper body flared, in part he knew it was because that same officer lurked about the ship.

After the airlock freed him, Kaidan made his way down the bridge trying not to draw any notice if he could avoid it. The head of the marine detail really just wanted to remain invisible in that moment, if it was at all possible. He could not be certain that someone would not pick up on his tension. No matter what answer he gave to any question asked of him just now, it would turn into something he would probably rather not hear the tail end of.

Surprisingly, no one stopped his progress to the men's officer's quarters. Once there, he found it empty. Another little blessing. He took a seat at the table and rubbed at his neck trying to relieve some of the strain in his now aching muscles, but it did little good.

Alenko figured the safest place on the ship in his current state might just be the shower. The hot water could ease the physical signs of his anxiety, if he was lucky. Plus, the lieutenant was almost damn certain that Admiral Mikhailovich would not be so anal retentive as to attempt to inspect an occupied shower. Just the thought of the flag officer made Kaidan's pulse resound through his skull again as his neck and shoulders started tightening up again at the mere memory of that moment. Never in his life had Kaidan pulled a 180° so fast--he went from relaxed to an unquantifiable pucker factor in a literal blink of an eye. The sight of those golden stripes on a field of Alliance blue and the lieutenant reverted into default mode. It was worse than boot camp, though he had reacted similarly--spending the entire four minutes at attention and in silence while he reminded himself to breathe and tried to get his heart to stop racing.

The momentary sense of relief once the admiral entered the ship dissipated when Shepard strolled up the dock. Alenko got no read on her, though the tension in the way she moved was quite easily discernible; well, it was to him. With the admiral gone, she seemed to be chasing the same types of thoughts around her own head as he had been. Hell, he still was not sure if the admiral's timing was dumb luck or some screwed up trick of the universe. _Finally throw caution to the wind for once and the damn book falls out of the sky and crushes you within twelve hours of breaking regs._

Kaidan ducked his head back under the water, letting the warmth trail down his neck and over his shoulders as he leaned on his arm against the wall. Still uncertain if it was recklessness or fear that made him do it, the officer considered his reaction. Grabbing Shepard like that, kissing her on the dock outside the ship--he shook his head at himself. It did not matter if he had concealed them, mostly.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he mumbled.

With the force of a krogan charge, the realization hit him. He had not been thinking. That familiar far off look flashed in her eyes, the one that always seemed to signal her pulling away in the past. The cold shift in the deep blue left him scrambling there on the dock, whereas in the past he always chalked up that psychological retreat--the widening of the gulf between them back to a proper distance--to some requirement of command. In that moment, Kaidan could not watch her withdraw again. After inching over that line, laying everything on the edge of that precipice, he refused to go backwards, which seemed to suit the commander fine after the fact. But there was still that moment, like she was giving him an out.

The thought had not occurred to him until that moment. Nyx knew as well as he did what was at stake for both of them--basically everything they had spent near on a decade working for. Kaidan raised his face into the jets, closing his eyes against the possibility. Perhaps it was optimistic on his part, or foolish, or ill-considered. While he knew all the reasons he should not attempt to start up a relationship with his commanding officer, he never really considered what might happen if things went badly. To be honest, Alenko knew that should have been a consideration given his track record, but Nyx was not like other women he dated in the past. Something told him she would not invite him into her quarters for tea and an ultimatum about white picket fences and a nine-to-five specialization that kept him in port.

Turning off the water, Kaidan turned and pulled the towel across his face. As he dried off he stared at the racing water droplets on the wall of the shower. _You can't play out the entire relationship in your head, before it even starts. Just give it a chance. It's what you want. So stop trying to predict the outcome and just go with it._ Part of him still worried. Losing his current post was a very real possibility regardless of how this thing with Shepard worked out. But while he had wondered where he stood with her, for some reason the idea that it would not work never crossed his mind before. And standing there dripping in the shower, he kind of wished that thought had not fluttered into his head.

 

**/5/**

Mikhailovich turned out to merely be disgruntled. He disagreed with the use of funds and also with the fact that the _Normandy_ had been ripped out from under his command. Shepard did not know which prompted his surprise inspection, but he wound up conceding that the vessel's commanding officer was confident in her abilities, even if he found fault in about everything about the ship and some of her crew. By the time they reached Fleet Command, Mikhailovich seemed less irate than when he greeted Shepard on the dock. Despite that Nyx did not hold out hope for a less than scathing report on her first line command.

Captain Anderson assured her the admiral had been making waves about the _Normandy_ since development on the project began. After Shepard was given command of the vessel, the flag officer became understandably irate. Despite dismissing the admiral's motive, the captain promised to forward her a copy of the report. Anderson also reminded her that with people like he, Hackett, and her N7 mentor Loukas Zahakis in her corner, Shepard had a well-appointed home team to back her. It offered comfort beyond just the situation with Mikhailovich.

By the time the _Normandy_ finally left port, not everyone was ready to leave Citadel, but that was usually how shore leave went, especially on frontline combat vessels. Shockingly, Shepard found herself sharing the sentiment for the first time in a long time. It was only partly due to the fact that the call from Fleet had not been quite what she was hoping. The Intelligence Service was hung up on some interesting chatter picked up by a recon pass through the far reaches of the Terminus Systems, which was set as the _Normandy's_ priority after putting out. During her visit, Anderson also confirmed a piece of intel the commander picked up that seemed to suggest a traffic increase in a dark corner of the galaxy known to harbor a number of pirate strongholds.

Yet again Shepard felt a little behind the curve. The Council heaved criticism for her choices on Therum and Feros, and seemed to punish her for it by remaining silent. It made her once again wonder if they even wanted her to complete the task they set her on. The commander knew where Saren was looking for a lost Prothean world, just not how to get there. Additionally since arriving at Feros weeks in his wake there was no trace of him or Benezia. Given, it was a large galaxy, and Saren seemed to still have friends despite his revoked Spectre status. Of course, he also had a large enough bank roll and a sizable force of geth to make it possible to buy or intimidate cooperation out of certain types of people who would never stand up and wave their hands for the Alliance's or the Citadel's aid.

Waking early always seemed to always happen right after she visited port, more so stations; there the cycles were more consistent and she at least had more of a sense of the time. The first morning after leaving the Citadel Nyx decided to make good on the decision to change her routine. She pulled on a pair of white trunks and a white tank top and stretched quickly, then walked barefoot to the elevator. She fiddled with her omnitool and found the music she was looking for on the way down--something with a thumping bass line to match the punches she planned on throwing.

Upon entering the little gym space, Nyx found she was not the only one with similar designs though she doubted anyone else in the small gym had just decided to add a visit to their morning routine. She crossed to the heavy bag along the wall without a word. The members of her combat team present seemed focused on their own regimens, though she did return the little nod Kaidan offered her.

Tugging on a pair of black padded gloves, Shepard bounced on the balls of her feet, contemplating the large black bag she was about to tangle with. This was something she did more for herself and her own stress management more than anything else. In the field, she rarely got close enough to go to fisticuffs with anyone or anything. So outside of sparring with teammates, the heavy bag was her only real outlet for any physical stress she might have stored up. As she started her quick and forceful assault on the bag, she heard signs that she had caught the attention of some, like Wrex who noisily abandoned the dumbbells he was toying with to observe her. Later a few other members of the team made their way into the adequately apportioned gym. Alenko traded a nod with Garrus as the turian crossed toward one of the vacant treadmills.

**/6/**

Her movements were fluid and dangerous, filled with a sort of menacing power even though it was all her and not even the slightest hint of biotics. The lieutenant watched as he ran, still a little in awe at the raw force pent up in that petite frame. The flexion of her muscles as she moved caused her skin to look like it was rippling as the light shone off the sheen of sweat covering her bare flesh. As she rose her knee to the bag then followed it with a swift powerful kick, he realized he had never seen her in shorts before which was followed by his own sudden and selfish wish that she was not, but merely for his own sanity. Alenko stared, transfixed, but then they all were. Most of the team had not been part of the crew when he and the commander sparred early on, so they had missed out on seeing this type of display.

"You can do all that, Shepard, but you dance like a drunken Elcor?" Wrex finally inquired as he leaned against the wall. She did not respond except to interrupt her movement with a quick one-shouldered shrug. Her feet moved constantly, as she almost danced with her target. "Does all that cutesy flitting about even work?"

"That a challenge?" she asked, stopping suddenly and grabbing the bag to still it, she glared up at the krogan.

Kaidan's pace faltered a moment but no one noticed, he hoped. He had gone head-to-head with Shepard, kind of. The whole team knew the commander had guts, but stepping up to challenge a krogan battlemaster with Wrex's skill seemed just this side of stupid.

Wrex just stared at her surprised and intrigued. _Maybe he won't take the bait_.

"Hell, yeah," Garrus replied from near the lieutenant. "I've always wanted to see some of that chichi human stuff in person." His voice held a note of derision as he hopped back onto his feet from what the turian described once as his callisthenic routine.

"No, biotics," the turian warned, pointing one talon at her as the crossed to the open area at the back of the gym.

"No tech," she retorted with a smirk and a similar gesture.

"Rules!" Williams boomed with the lungs any drill instructor would have been proud of as she took up the role of referee. "Three rounds. Back on the mat is a pin. Best two out of three. And try not to actually kill one another. No one wants to do the paperwork."

All in attendance laughed; the combatants agreed and readied themselves. Even before it started the human and the turian studied one another. As Shepard unfastened and tugged off her gloves, all eyes were drawn to the door that slid open. Tali, followed by a few out-of-breath engineers, straightened and entered the room at a pace that seemed to suggest they were trying not to look like they had just sprinted down the deck.

"Looks like Joker was paying attention," Garrus noted with a little tell-tale ripple in flange of his voice.

That little confident one-shouldered shrug reappeared. "A little good-natured competition is always good for morale," she stated. "Plus I'm going to wipe the mat with you, Vakarian."

While the turian's laughter vibrated off the metal surfaces, a menacing smile bloomed on the human's face as she moved carefully across the mat eying him. Recalling his own turn in that position, Alenko could not help but notice the C-Sec officer weathered it well. Garrus looked rather confident.

So much so that he decided to strike first. He lunged; Shepard dodged to the side, coming up and landing a quick hit to the side of his abdomen. He pulled his arm back and caught her in the cheek. Another body shot from Shepard landed near the first before she spun out of his reach, when that long arm swiped at her.

"Five K, on Garrus," Wrex said loud enough for the combatants to hear as he came to lean on the machine the lieutenant abandoned.

"I'll take that action," Alenko replied similarly, as Ashley and Tali joined them. "Shepard'll take him. I've seen her do it before."

That comment drew a quick glance from Garrus, who quickly shook it off as Shepard moved away from him again after another series of punishing body shots.

 

**/7/**

Word of the impromptu match spread around the ship quickly. The first round seemed to go on forever as the two of them felt out one another's style. But Garrus eventually tripped her up and downed her. Nyx stood up laughing and returned the favor rather quickly in the second round.

"Tied up," Ashley announced to the room for any latecomers, as the third round started.

The small crowd consisted of the rest of the squad as well as some of the crew who were not currently on duty. Even Engineer Adams had been drawn from his station to watch the contest.

"You're pretty good, Shepard," Garrus said after she landed a square shot to his jaw.

She bounced nimbly just beyond his reach as she replied with a playful raise of her eyebrows and a coy smirk. "I know."

He roared with laughter just before he lunged. She dodged rolling along his side and repeating the body shot combination she used on him earlier, knowing it was likely sore and bruised--which made her wonder if turians bruised. She regretted the thought; he had played her. Vakarian reached around and grabbed her, gripping her neck quickly as he tried to gain advantage on her. She repeated the shot to his torso again with one fist as she moved to twist the claw off her throat with the other hand. He was stronger than she had anticipated and the spot was not as tender as she hoped since he demonstrated almost no reaction to the punch.

Nihlus' voice was in her ears then she brought the side of her hand down onto his neck. She saw Garrus' eyes go blank for a moment as his muscles went slack. She peeled the hand off her neck and swept his legs out from under him. He hit the mat with a loud violent sound; Shepard landed next to him on her hands and knees, gulping down air. Garrus laid there dazed for a moment.

The commander crawled over and tapped him on the shoulder. "You all right?"

He nodded slightly, still trying to get it all back in place. It was a feeling the human knew well. Pushing herself to her feet, she stood over him holding her hand out, still breathing heavily as she tried to catch her breath.

"Damn, Shepard." He was shaking his head a little as he stood. "Been a long time since I got my ass kicked like that."

"I don't know. You almost had me," she said as she gripped his upper arm, steadying them both. "Didn't hurt you with the neck thing, did I?"

He shook his head. "Not at all. Caught me off guard though. What the hell did Nihlus teach you?"

The commander smiled when she let go of him. "He thought I should know how to take down a turian in a pinch. Comes in handy," she revealed.

"Garrus, you should probably let Chakwas check you out." Kaidan suggested as he walked toward them.

"I'm fine, Lieutenant."

"Let's just call it regulations. After this type of thing, they like to have medical sign off and I'm not approved to clear you."

The turian held up his talons in submission and walked toward the door through which everyone else exited.

"Very diplomatic, Lieutenant," Shepard said quietly as she examined the scrapes on her knuckles. Perhaps barehanded fighting and face shots with a turian had not been the best call, though, admittedly her knuckles had looked worse.

"He wouldn't have gone if I didn't chalk it up to protocol," he replied as his omnitool lit to life. "You should probably swing by the medbay yourself."

She glanced over at him. "Except that you are trained to clear humans," she reminded. "Plus, the doctor will lecture me about playing with the crew again. You might be a little more forgiving."

He laughed, shooting her that smile that made her breath hitch. He had already started the scan and was shaking his head at her. The nerves were still obvious, and the two of them were walking a pretty thin line. His breathing was slow and measured as he concentrated on precisely what needed to be done. Nyx bit the inside of her cheek and tried to not let her head lean into his touch as he held her face, while he slid his thumb across the gash beneath her left eye. Applying medigel to her split lip almost undid her; the tremble in his touch made her smile, which she paid for with a sharp reminder that playing with turians could be a dangerous game. That was one lesson she thought she should be well-versed with given her past experiences.

The sudden tightness and flexion in his jaw distracted her from the soft way he looked at her.

"What's up?" she asked noticing the reaction.

"You're going to have some pretty nasty bruises there, Shepard," he said as he touched her neck gently. The grazing stroke of his fingertips sent a shiver down her spine.

She raised her hand to her neck and could feel the slightly dull ache as she pressed at the flesh. "Not surprised really. I don't think he realized how tight his grip was. That's why I dazed him."

Kaidan looked down at her. "You could have said something," he said quietly with evident concern.

"I knew I had options, if I couldn't peel him off." She shrugged nonchalantly as she leaned away from him to grab her gloves of a nearby bench. "Thanks, Alenko." She slid past him, tapping him on the shoulder quite casually with her gloves, before she padded across the room. "And don't forget to collect from Wrex," Nyx said when she entered the bay, pointing at the krogan with a wink.

"Thanks, Shepard," Wrex growled.

The commander nodded at him. _Sooner or later he will figure out not to bet against me,_ she thought as the elevator doors closed _._ As she rode up to the crew deck, Nyx tried not to smile because the action still made her lip sting.

Over Irish Breakfast tea after they abandoned the little diner, she and Kaidan had tossed around possible approaches to the issue that still loomed beyond the simple stolen pleasure of a cup of tea and quiet corners.  There was no doubt for either of them that what they had decided to do could not be flaunted on an Alliance vessel. Their interest may have pushed them to cross the line, but they were both completely aware that the line was still there even if they were skirting the edge of it. Both were officers, whatever else they chose that remained constant.

The two of them determined that perhaps just skirting the same edge they had been might be the best call, at least on the ship. Temptation remained the looming worry. Knowing made things different; in some ways it was easier to know that they were both willing to lay it all out there for a change. It quieted some of the questions and accusations that played through her head, while still managing to inspire more.

The commander was not sure the plan would work, or that it might actually fool anyone. As she leaned there against the wall of the elevator, arms crossed over her chest, with a stinging smile on her face and the memory of the way Kaidan gazed at her, Nyx wanted to do this. She wanted the chance to see if there was more than the mission, more to it all, more to her.

And there were times when it seemed like there might just be, usually in the little moments. Treating Alenko like any other crew member might not work. It had not before. After the romp with Garrus, prompting the lieutenant to clear her seemed to have put them both on the edge of the little no man's land they had been skirting. It was all she could do not to react to his touch when he tended the scrapes, and the tenderness in his eyes as he did so threw her off balance, as usual, but knowing tempered the reaction.

Garrus exited the medbay about the time Shepard reached the deck. "Good show, Vakarian," she said as she walked toward her quarters.

"Shepard," he called, crossing to her quickly with that long stride of his. When he reached her, he lifted her chin and turned it looking at her cheek then when he saw the rising discoloration in her neck his mandibles twitched.

"It's all good, Garrus. Humans aren't as … sturdy as turians."

"I grabbed you too tightly it would appear. I apologize. It won't happen again."

"Damn straight," Shepard said, poking him once in the chest with two fingers. "Next time I won't let you get the drop on me."

"Next time?" Chakwas asked from across the deck.

"Relax, doc. We had referees and a medic." She patted Garrus on the shoulder and gave him a wink that told him there was nothing to be concerned about. "And Alenko cleared me."

The officer, pleased that her tone remained upbeat and nonchalant the entire time, continued into her quarters and fell onto the bed. That had not quite been what she planned for her morning workout. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, she reluctantly peeled herself off her bunk and gathered her uniform and shower kit before ducking out of her quarters again.

By the time she finished her shower, the bruises were coming into their most vibrant coloring--a striking shading of blues and purples with a tinge of black for good measure. She felt bad for Garrus, though, because until they subsided he would be irritated with himself. With a glance down, she focused on the scrapes on her knuckles for a minute. While easier to overlook, they too were just another physical reminder of just how rash she could be sometimes. The decision to go three rounds with the turian, however, seemed like just one more drop for her bucket of self-recrimination.


	20. Blast From the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The relaxation of the short leave on the Citadel barely lingers before Nyx and the crew are thrown back into the mix. But this time around Shepard has to deal with the fact that the Alliance is not pulling punches. When an admiral from First Fleet calls in for assistance with a very delicate situation the commander must face the realization that there are times when orders will preclude her normal methods for team selection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Chy and LadyA--as always ladies you are fabulous help with this piece.

**20 Blast From the Past**

**/1/**

The bridge crew was regularly unnerved by Shepard's ability to move through the ship silently. She snuck up on just about everyone, not just the pilot, whose eyes were rarely directed toward the CIC. Often when she came to the helm her approach was quiet. When her presence was in an official capacity, her arrival and looming could go unrecognized as well. But that night her arrival was anything but silent or stealthy.

"Here."

Joker took the mug thrust at him and looked down at the fluffy white kernels brimming over the edge. "What is this?"

"Popcorn," Shepard replied with a look that suggested Moreau was pretending to be dense.

"I know that. I meant what are you doing in my cockpit with popcorn?"

"Whose cockpit?" The CO leaned her ear toward him slightly.

Joker sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine. _Your_ cockpit. Doesn't change the question."

"You forced me to watch that Blasto monstrosity, so I figure you owe me one."

"Oh for the love of …"

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Don't worry your pretty head over it, Moreau. My taste in movies is leaps and bounds beyond yours. I'm even going to give you a little bit of say."

"Really?" he asked, popping a few still warm kernels into his mouth.

"I brought three."

Joker watched her hop into the co-pilot's station and shift, digging into the pocket on her left thigh. Shepard started losing time at the helm during the death watch just after Eden Prime. She would pop up every once and a while when Joker was at the helm overnight. She shuffled the disks and shot him that crooked smile that was playful tempered with a little menace.

"So would you rather pick blind or tick them down?"

"I'll take door number two, Commander."

The grin widened as she leaned on the arm of the chair toward him, holding up a disc and shaking it at him. " _Silence of the Lambs_."

"Too soon, Shepard. You cut it too close on that last deployment. I think I even saw Nunez looking up recipes on 'how to _serve_ your fellow man,' if you get my meaning."

"Okay," she replied with a laugh. " _Hellboy_."

"Big red demon. Why would you want to watch something about Wrex's early years?"

The commander laughed lightly. "Fine, by process of elimination. This is your choice."

"Doesn't matter."

The commander slid the OSD into the console and Joker ran a quick systems check before the music started playing. He couldn't place it, but judging from the large blue letters floating toward the front of the screen he had missed the title. The music started and it sounded familiar, then he saw the next graphic: "Once upon a time warp…"

"Are you serious, Shepard?"

"What?" she asked with bright eyes, a Cheshire-cat grin, and a wiggle of her eyebrows.

" _Spaceballs_ , really?"

"Somehow, I knew you'd know this one on sight."

"Well, it's a classic, right?"

"Hell yeah," she agreed with a silly laugh as she settled back into the chair.

In Joker's opinion, you really could not go wrong with satire, but it was a little strange that Shepard seemed so engrossed in the ridiculous film from a whole other era. _Maybe that's the point_ , he thought as her bright laughter prompted his own. Though her interest seemed to die off about a third of the way in; the commander still laughed at all the best lines and would look up for what the pilot presumed were her favorite scenes. But mostly her attention was glued to the datapads she had brought up with her.

"Hey, Shepard, you had one of those as a kid, didn't you?" Joker asked just as Mel Brooks picked up _Spaceballs: The Flame Thrower, a children's toy_.

The mock-glare fell on him for a moment before she threw a few kernels of her popcorn at him as she giggled lightly. "Two actually," she told the work lying in her lap. Her eyes flicked upward to meet his as the mischievous grin lit her face. "Jerk."

"That's all you got."

A real glare suggested that might not be the door he wanted to walk through.

Joker slapped one of her dangling feet lightly as President Scroob grabbed Colonel Sanders, yelling about his inability to make a decision because he's a politician.

"God, that guy reminds me of Udina," Shepard muttered.

Joker snorted. "I bet. Did he ride you hard over the stuff with the Council?"

"Of course he did. He's got his head so far up their asses he couldn't find daylight with someone holding his hand."

Jeff noticed the wince tighten her features. "I know the drill. Need to know and all that shit," he replied, holding up his hands.

"And I thought you said pilots were chatty?"

Joker leaned on the arm of his chair. "We are. Just some of us are smart enough to know when to shut up and listen."

"Good to know, Lieutenant."

Joker nodded at her as the credits started rolling. Shepard tapped the interface and the disc slid out.

"Hey! Can I borrow those?"

"All of 'em?" she asked, stretching her arms above her head.

"Yeah. Crosby mentioned some of the natives are getting a little restless."

Shepard snapped the disk into its case then stood and dug the other two out of her pocket. "Let me know if they need more. I have a nice collection of weird old movies."

"I can tell."

"Watch it, Joker."

Moreau laughed. "Thanks, I'll get these back to you."

Shepard shook her head.

When she started up the gangway, Joker turned and said, "Take it easy, Shepard."

Joker chewed at the inside of his cheek for a few moments. The short visit to the Citadel might have eased some of the strain onboard the _Normandy_ , but not even twenty-four hours off the station and Shepard was already mired back in it all. They all were, really. The ship was headed for the ass-end of the galaxy checking in on some weird activity in a sparsely populated system and Saren was still out there doing God-knows-what, devil-knows-where.

 

**/2/**

"Shepard!"

Pressly's voice echoed through her skull as she lifted her head off the table in her quarters. "Yeah," she replied, trying for it to not sound like the groan it was.

"Incoming message. Flagged priority. They requested you actual, ma'am," the XO stated.

That combination of words was among the few phrases that could instantly wake or sober the commander from whatever altered state she might be in. On her run across the deck she took a dangerous chance and slid into a turn that managed to turn out more slick than she expected. Honestly, she figured her momentum would be stopped by the wall with a graceless thud, but somehow she managed to pull it off. Giving the sweet move less than a moment of thought, she darted up the stairs and into the CIC. Though she slowed her pace on the upper deck, she still moved to the comm room at a quick clip.

As soon as she punched up the connection, Shepard regretted having fallen asleep without her blouse and not having thought to grab it on her way out of her quarters. She tugged at her white undershirt sharply, trying to make up for being out of uniform.

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard."

The mere sound of Admiral Ines Lindholm's voice made, Nyx's skin crawl and her jaw tighten. Straightening slowly, the officer clasped her hands behind her back, falling back into a habit that started in basic, tensing and relaxing the muscles in her arm when she felt the irritation bubbling.

"Admiral Lindholm," Nyx replied trying to keep her tone unreadable.

Even in transmission, Shepard could see the older woman's eyes move over her in that same judgmental way as always.

_Just what I need_.

The head of First Fleet and the first human Spectre had a history that started early on and just got worse through the years. Taranis Shepard had served on some of Lindstrom's early commands. The admiral saw the Shepard girl as a troublemaker, or so she had told Nyx more than a few times. Of course the admiral's dislike of the commander was cemented long before Shepard enlisted in the Alliance.

"Fleet Command would like you and your _squad_ to look into a matter in the Voyager Cluster," Ines stated, coolly. The woman in the projection stood at parade rest, while Shepard stepped forward, crossing her arms over her chest as she waited for the rest of the information.

After a long silence, Shepard said, "You will have to enlighten me, ma'am. Or at least send over the reports and my X-O and I will handle the brief."

The shift in Lindholm's shoulder which accompanied her sigh made Nyx want to grin, but she bit it back. _No need to ruffle her anymore than she is already._

"This mission and all information about it is to be limited to Alliance personnel _only_ , Commander."

"Understood," Shepard replied before Lindholm could ask the question. Though she might not care for the caveat, Nyx was aware of some of the opinions in the Navy about her team; and, given her knowledge of this officer in particular, the order was hardly surprising.

The information passed over the transmission was scant, but clear enough. The reason for the human-only requirement became clearer with the revelation that the espionage probe, which had suddenly started transmitting its location, was armed with a nuclear booby-trap. Little explanation was needed after that, though Shepard got an earful, including suggestions about how to handle the device as well as the coordinates of where to rendezvous with the cruiser _SSV London_ once the device was in hand.

Lindholm found it necessary to remind the commander yet again about the need for discretion with this mission and the order to keep need-to-know under a tight rein. The Alliance preferred not to have this mistake splashed all over the extranet or the galactic news. Most of all they did not want the turians or the Council to discover that the spy probes the Alliance had sent out during and shortly after the First Contact War had been rigged with powerful nukes. This was undecidedly a black eye that humanity could not take at a moment when they were seeking a larger role in the galactic community.

"Yes, ma'am," Shepard repeated for the last time. The admiral finally dropped the connection after at least the fourth repetition of confirming understanding of that primary concern.

Nyx always hated seeing this sort of blatant xenophobic directive come up, but to be honest, she expected it to come up long before it finally reared its ugly head. Non-Disclosure Agreements only went so far with military actions, and classified information on this level she knew only came to her because mission parameters would require the inclusion of tools to disarm the warhead before they brought it aboard the frigate. Of course, Shepard trusted all her crew, which is why she did not balk at inclusion of the alien team members, even when classified information might be involved.

Early on, Shepard noticed her team seemed replete with discretion before any of them were a team. Wrex had no problem detailing his mission, but practically everything else--personal and professional--he kept under his vest. Garrus' role with C-Sec and his investigation into Saren required care and consideration; his judiciousness seemed bred to the bone. Tali, without question, held confidence better than anyone Nyx knew, save for Caz, and she was the most discreet being on the _Normandy_. Even Liara managed to keep a lid on the work the team performed; perhaps due to the myriad of other topics her interest diverted into, which left her no shortage of topics to discuss other than her work with the squad.

In large part, the commander assumed some of her team's responses were due to the culture specific to military vessels--everyone knew their role and their part of the whole. Additionally, servicemen understood the nature of the trickle down of information. This crew, having been handpicked for this mission, likely knew better than most the necessity of need-to-know. It also seemed possible that it was also the reason Shepard rarely heard questions asked about missions, or perhaps Pressly's rein was tight enough to keep people's tongues from wagging about that.

Deep down Nyx felt it might be more than all those things. The very nature of her team's association and their individual encounters with Saren and his forces, early on and since, easily communicated the need for candor and prudence in all things. Arterius knew Shepard and the _Normandy_ were after him. He likely knew precisely who peopled the human Spectre's squad. Dead certain that he had his ear to the ground for them, that he skulked in the shadows waiting for one misstep, that he anxiously awaited besting her team--Nyx knew the importance of discretion, and likely so did every person on board.

Trust. The key to so many things, trust counted for a lot with Shepard and officers like her. That she trusted the humans and aliens she worked with was enough for many of those she reported to.

Most of their mission directives came straight from Hackett, and he knew her better than all but one other flag officer in the service, which she attributed to Anderson's influence. Once she started commanding Arcturus' Team 7, David made sure that any time he could manage it, the captain got her in situations, both professional and social, with the brass. He was convinced she needed to know how to deal with them as more than just a successful operator. Though she learned to wade through that sea of sharks only suffering a few nips here and there, Shepard always fared better with officers who had actual field combat experience, of which there were shockingly few among the current admiralty.

Her fingers tapped absently against her thigh thudding lightly again the compact hardback book she stowed there.

"Pressly," she said a little more loudly than she had intended when she tagged the button.

The little catch in his response confirmed she had indeed shocked him as well. "Ma'am?"

"Bring me three copies of that data coming in from the admiral, please."

With his agreement, she shifted channels and told Joker to change their heading. After reading through the information sent over from Lindholm, the commander pulled up her omnitool and messaged Alenko and Williams. While she waited, she went through the schematics of the device again.

_Three sections. Shit! It would have to be three. And you would have to be classified. Damn spies and their toys anyway_ , she thought with a laugh. She could not help the stray thought for her friend that she still had not heard from. Trying to push that thought out of her head she set the datapad on the floor between her feet and rubbed little circles at her temples as she stared at the orangish lines.

 

**/3/**

"What's up?" Ashley asked as she met Alenko at the elevator in the cargo bay.

The lieutenant shook his head slightly. "No idea."

Williams bit absently at the inside corner of her mouth as they waited. It was odd for Shepard not to call for the whole team when a mission came in. This worried the soldier for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that usual niggling doubt and her father's voice whispering in the back of her head: _A Williams has to be better than the best, to make up for Shanxi_.

When the elevator opened, she shook her head clear. The hand on her arm pulled her attention back to Alenko. He had the furrow in his brow that always seemed to appear when someone asked a question he did not know the immediate answer to. She chided him about it being his Encyclopedia Brown face, but she certainly would have preferred it not be turned on her in that moment.

"You doing okay, Chief?"

"Fine." Even she heard the sharp clipped nature of her voice. Taking a more even breath she said, "Let's go. Commander's waiting."

She jogged up the stairs and turned into the comm room, stopping cold two steps in when she saw her own face up on the big monitor in the center of the back wall. Ashley did not even get a moment to freak out silently over the fact that her CO was projecting her service record on the screen because Alenko was only far enough behind her to collide with her just inside the doorway.

"Mission briefs are on the chairs. Take a peek," Shepard suggested as she smirked in their direction and waved them into the room. "Williams."

"Ma'am," she replied almost defensively, stiffening as she came to attention, expecting the worst.

The atypical response drew Shepard's appraising gaze. The cock of her eyebrow suggested the chief might have been reading too deep.

"Not a lot of bomb disposal in your past, I see."

"No, ma'am."

The keen look was turned on her again. She noticed the commander's quick glance at the lieutenant and turned in time to see him shrug and shake his head once. Shepard just set her hands on her hips and shook it off. As the man took a seat to skim the material, Nyx walked over and set her hand on Ashley's shoulder.

"Relax, Ash," the commander said quietly before turning her attention to the other officer. "Alenko, check the specs in addendum 2a there and tell me if you think we can train her to diffuse one of those in a handful of hours."

Ashley laughed. "Yeah, right."

"Take a seat and read up, Chief." The order was much more gentle than it might normally have been, but it still held the same note of quiet authority that the CO's voice often held.

"Commander, if this is what I think this is--" Alenko started, looking up at the short blonde from the seat he had taken.

"It is."

"Shit," he muttered at the datapad in his hands. The staff lieutenant rubbed his hand over the back of his neck for a long moment staring at the thin screen. With a little groan of irritation, he stood and gestured at Shepard. "Pull it up on the big screen for me."

She did as he asked. Alenko moved toward the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest as his eyes traced the drawing that replaced Williams' record. The chief returned her attention to the mission parameters, and soon found herself staring at the same diagram that had Shepard and Alenko whispering heatedly on the other side of the room.

"You can argue the fact all you want. But unless you can convince Admiral Lindholm to let me bring the quarian, we're going to have to make this work," Shepard said in an even tone that oozed finality.

"There's no way." Manipulating the interface near the railing Alenko made a section of the image bigger.

"That's a lot of wires, L-T," Williams observed from behind the two of them.

Both officers glanced back at her sharply. _Wrong time, right._ Her intention had been to lighten the mood, but it had failed. She shrank back, even so far as to take a step away. The jargon was lost on her--wires, switches, power sources, redundancy, housings, and load ratios--it was almost worse than the mandatory engineering classes all marines took. Williams preferred concrete real world considerations like wind velocity and direction, trigger pull weight, scope mounts, and fire rate; those were the things she knew, that was the language she was most comfortable with.

In a pinch she could defuse a mine, maybe even deactivate one of the bombs like they happened across on Eden Prime, but she would not seek out that job. As much as she strove to be the best, Ashley learned a long time ago, the hard way, that part of that was knowledge of your own limits. Of course, another part was pushing past them, but demolitions was not the best place for trial and error, at least not if one had designs on keeping all their fingers and toes.

Shepard sat back on the railing and crossed her arms as she glanced up at the chief. "You only went through the basic course in explosives, right, Chief? Nothing I'm missing in your book?"

"No. That's all I've done on that front. Even at that it was never really my strong suit, always been better at blowing things up than disabling them."

The commander nodded. "I hear that, Chief."

Alenko shook his head.

"Think you can get two?" Shepard asked the man still staring at the screen. He did not answer at first, so the commander added another consideration. "Give me the hard one and you take the easy ones."

"There are no easy ones," he muttered. The crossness in his tone suggested the truth of his statement and his concern over the situation.

"Shepard, why isn't the rest of the team here?" Williams finally asked.

The commander pressed her fingers over her forehead as her lips pulled together into a thin line. After more than a minute, Nyx finally chose the answer she could give. "Orders. None of us are going to Agebinium, none of us are going to secure a non-existent Alliance espionage probe, and the _Normandy_ sure as hell is not rendezvousing with a First Fleet cruiser to not deliver said fictional device."

"Ah."

Ashley read enough spy novels and watched enough movies to get where Shepard was going, but this was all new for her. Her time with the Alliance was spent on solid details on quiet planets, running drills with her fellow marines. Up until the geth landed on Eden Prime, the most dangerous thing she had come across in her career had been Gunny Ellison in boot and some wild varren that were skirting a little farming community outside of Constant[i] one dry summer. Missions like this and most of the others that had come to the _Normandy_ were way beyond anything Ashley ever really thought she would get to see.

Part of her was glad that this was the reason only she and Alenko were called. Initially, her nerves had gotten the better of her, even more so when she saw her service record projected on the big screen. For a half a second she felt like she might be losing her spot. For another half second, she was worried the Williams family curse had caught back up to her. Or, worse, that Shepard had found out about the family secret that almost everyone in the service knew about--except the commander it seemed.

"Yeah," Shepard agreed with a nod. "And brass wants this to be military only. They'd like to avoid a potential black eye."

"I could see that."

The commander nodded. "So can I. But I don't like people making judgments about my team or their tact."

Valid arguments for both sides of that coin ran through Ashley's head. If this had come up earlier in the cruise, she might have just stood on deck with the orders. But now, she could not be that certain anymore. The rest of the squad might not be Alliance, but they were Shepard's crew. They were loyal, and they were not stupid or chatty where it counted. In the end it mattered little, the call was made for all of them somewhere up the chain.

"Have we got any scans on this planet?" Williams finally asked.

"No. Nothing more than the beacon suddenly coming back on line."

"That seems …"

Both officers glanced at her.

"Odd," Williams finished, eyes moving from Nyx to Kaidan and back again.

Shepard's crooked smile made the chief straighten a little. "Totally agree."

"These things don't just turn themselves on randomly," Kaidan said, still staring at the schematics.

"Who--?" Ashley started.

Nyx's head was already shaking, so there was no need to finish the question they all wanted the answer to. 

"Shepard, if someone turned the beacon on, they could have tampered with the device," Alenko said over his shoulder.

"I'm aware. But can you do it?"

"Maybe."

Shepard raised her eyebrows at the unconvincing shrug he gave her as he turned and leaned on the railing.

"It depends," he acquiesced. "If they cannibalized it, sure I can probably figure it out. If it is still intact and they reworked it, I might still be able to. But I have to see what, if anything, they did. It could just be one connection that needs to be worked, or, if they left the failsafes, we are still looking at three separate disarms and two pairs of hands. No offense, Chief," Alenko added with an apologetic look.

"None taken." _In this instance_.

Ashley carried a heavy dislike of that phrase and others of its ilk. It was usually just a polite way of scraping someone down, but she was pretty sure the L-T was not doing that in this case. She got antsy around bombs, even if she was the one setting them. In basic, when they were training with mine setting, she was lucky they only used dead ordinance or she would have ended her career before it started.

"If we're somehow lucky and this thing is intact and untampered with, think you can pull off two before it goes live and turns us into crispy critters?"

Alenko winced and tipped his head from side to side for a moment. "I think I might be able to do it. The tail is the least complicated. You'll take the one at the nose. I'll get aft and mid. But, Chief," he turned and looked at her. "I'm going to need you to get this housing off here." Kaidan moved the image to the center of the device and manipulated it to focus on the spot. "Pop this panel, and yank all these wires out, carefully though so nothing gets loosened."

"You got it, L-T."

When both officers turned back to the image Ashley pressed her palm to her thigh. _Crap_. She was still on the ship light years away from that damn bomb and her hands were already sweating.

"We're going to leave you to it, Alenko."

He made a gruff little sound of acknowledgement as Ashley moved to the door. When she entered the stairwell, Shepard's hand on her back made her jump a little. "My quarters. Now, Chief," the small blonde ordered.

 

**/4/**

Nyx pulled out one of the chairs at the table as she waited for Williams to join her. "Park it," she ordered a little more gruffly than she originally planned when the younger woman entered the room.

The look was back, the one that Shepard noticed when the chief entered the comm room earlier. The one she knew from experience. "Something I should know, Chief?"

"No, ma'am."

Shepard watched her for a moment, noticing the subtle shift in her gaze and the movement in her arms that gave away the fact that the other woman's fists were balled up tight. Williams excelled at concealing, but then so did Shepard, which was how she was able to read it quite so easily. It was like looking in a mirror, only back in time. From skimming the chief's service record and the little more thorough training perusal done in the comms room, Shepard knew that this was the first thing anywhere near special operations that the young marine participated in. She also knew it could be intimidating, even if you were completely prepared.

"Tell me about the nerves. Is it merely the nuclear bomb you're worried about?" she asked in a tone she hoped might make Williams relax a little.

"Mostly."

"Ok. That I can understand. Not feeling so comfortable with that one myself, to be honest." Nyx slid into a chair opposite the chief and tapped her fingers on the table for a moment. "But that doesn't explain the look you shot me when you walked in here or into the comms earlier."

"I thought it was strange. You know? Just calling Alenko and me up top." Williams shrugged. "Got a little antsy."

"Why?"

"No reason really." The slow articulation of each syllable spoke volumes to the commander.

Shepard was not buying what the chief was shoveling. "Come on, Ash. Your book reads as good as the lieutenant's. Perfect fit reps, accolades, and your scores are off the charts. What gives?" Nyx leaned forward on the table, folding her hands together as she stared at her subordinate, her friend. "I thought for a while it was just nerves. New boat, new job, new squad. Different load than you were used to. Add in some aliens and a psychotic Spectre--Saren, not me," the officer added, being rewarded with an anxious, but amused snort. "You're doing shit hot here and still you looked at me like I was about to bust you back to private."

Williams crossed her arms then reversed the motion, shifting in her seat slightly. Finally, Ashley decided to stand and the pacing began. Nyx smiled, that was her own preference too when pressed.

"Let's just call it the Williams' Family Curse," the chief finally said, stopping for a moment and looking at the officer as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest.

"All right. I'll bite."

The wide-eyes Ashley cast on Shepard suggested the commander might be missing something.

"You really don't know?"

"Need a more specific question, Chief. There are a lot of things I don't know."

Ashley was in the chair again, arms on the table as she stared at Shepard with her brow furrowed. She opened her mouth once as if she was going to say something, but the brunette stopped before she did. Her lips ticked back and forth for a moment.

"You've heard of General Oberon Williams, right?" Ashley asked with an over abundance of caution.

With that name the realization struck Shepard in the face like a wet fish; suddenly everything became crystal clear. It explained a lot of what the commander wondered about where the chief was concerned. Nyx nodded slowly. "Yep."

"All my C-Os just seem to know. Thought you did, too, and were just playing it sly."

"No, I didn't know anything about it until now."

"That's why I was still on Eden Prime. Couldn't get anyone to look past my lineage."

Shepard nodded. That was not a problem she had experienced, but she was more than aware of the influence of family on someone's career. While her own name and her family's reputation had not hindered her, it had not exactly helped her along her chosen path either.

Ashley went into some detail about it. Despite the differences, the experiences still resonated for Shepard; and the clearer things became the more irritated she was. Politics were a pain in the ass regardless of the arena. And it was political maneuvering that had locked Ashley up tight for several years. Nyx could not help thinking that if other officers had not been so quick to judge the name, she and Williams might have been working together for years before Eden Prime. The skill, the dedication, and the drive were there, but Ash had literally been held back because of something utterly out of her control and completely meaningless in terms of her career, at least in Nyx's opinion.

"Dad always said a Williams has to be better than the best, to make up for it," Ashley said.

"You've got that covered and then some."

"Yeah, right," the brunette scoffed.

Biting her bottom lip tightly, Nyx stared at Ashley. _Fine. I'll prove_ it. Shepard pushed herself up from the table and waved Williams over to the screen on the wall above her desk. In a few clicks, Williams' SRB was on the screen. "This is your last eval right? Marksmanship scores, physical performance results?"

The marine nodded.

"All off the charts by the way." Shepard's addition brought the start of a smile. "Better than my last performance review," the commander said, watching the younger woman's eyes widen.

"I … uh … Thank you, ma'am."

"Like I told you before. Nothing to thank me for. You did it, Chief. I'm just delivering the report."

"Permission to speak freely?" Ashley asked.

"Haven't we had this conversation?" Shepard replied with a raise of her eyebrows. All of her squad knew there were a few choice moments when her blanket permission to speak their minds was rescinded, and that involved the presence of flag officers typically.

Williams smiled. "I've never served under an officer that didn't take Shanxi into consideration."

"Well that's because sometimes officers are idiots. Ask Joker. That's his standing appraisal of most people who outrank him."

"That might be his opinion about most people in general," Williams noted.

"True, enough. But he's right. And for what it's worth, when this is all said and done, you'll have my recommendation. Don't know how much weight it will hold--"

The reaction surprised Nyx, not that it was the first time she had been ambush hugged during a conversation of this nature; she had merely not expected that reaction from the chief.

"Sorry, Commander," Williams said quietly, taking a step back after releasing her. "If it's all the same. I'm content with my current position."

"Glad to hear it. Selfishly, of course," Nyx said with a smile.

Ashley's voice started low, like she was being cautious. "Just like moons and like suns, / With the certainty of tides, / Just like hopes springing high, / Still I'll rise. / Did you want to see me broken? / Bowed head and lowered eyes? / Shoulders falling down like teardrops. / Weakened by my soulful cries," Ashley quoted calmly.

The commander knew the poem well. Maya Angelou's _Still I Rise_ was a piece she whispered to herself more than once in her career. The corner of Shepard's mouth ticked up a little higher and with a chuckle she nodded at the chief, looking the younger woman in the eyes. "You may shoot me with your words, / You may cut me with your eyes, / You may kill me with your hatefulness, / But still, like air, I'll rise"

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised you know that one," Williams said with a brightness in her eyes.

"The Vorcha quatrains gave me away, didn't they? I can be such a softie."

The chief laughed. "Just a little bit."

"I'm a bit of a sucker for Maya Angelou, always have been really. She was one of my mother's favorites along with that particular poem. She really liked that one a lot."

" _Still I Rise_ is how I got through being passed over," Ashley admitted, crossing her arms over her chest. "Every damn time. Stood there at parade rest and said it over and over in my head. Never heard the bullshit reasons they denied my requests."

"Oorah, Chief," Shepard replied.

The commander's fingertips tapped against her thigh as she watched her friend for a long moment, trying to come to a decision. With a nod, Shepard crossed over to her footlocker. She came up with a small red book and joined Ashley, who had returned to the table. This time Nyx sat next to her, holding the item between her palms with a telling reverence.

"This started with my mother's mother. She was a nurse. Tough work. And every once and a while she needed something to remind her there was more than death and suffering. Mom added to it later, inspirational things, whatever seemed to fit the mood of the moment."

Shepard slid the elastic from around it and turned the pages of handwritten words. Some pages were scrawled erratically in pencil, others held flowing careful script, then there was her mother's writing which was almost always in black, except for a section of about a few dozen pages in red, which Nyx skipped in order to locate her own precise block printing and concise script.

"There's one caveat. This isn't just a book to be read," Shepard said, offering it toward the chief. "You have to add to it once and a while, too."

"I couldn't," Williams declined, shaking her head and wearing a look that bordered on sorrowful.

"Oh, I'm not giving it to you. It's a loan. I expect it back. But sometimes it's nice to have something that reminds us that we aren't the only ones in these spots. Others have been there and lived through it. Even managed to strive and rise." Shepard took Williams' hand and placed the book in her palm.

The look on her friend's face was easy to read, and the commander looked away knowing the emotion there could too effortlessly sweep her up as well. Ashley stared at the pages, flipping a few, before her eyes darted to the ceiling. "I don't know what to say, Shepard."

"Nothing to say." The commander stood and sighed, tilting her head from one shoulder to the other. "We have a few hours before we get to this backcountry rock. Suggest you study up, or rest up, or … you know … whatever."

"Is that your version of last call, Skipper?"

"Yeah, I guess it is."

Ashley shook the book at the officer as she stood. "I'll get this back to you."

"Take your time, Chief. It's a good read. And I'm sure you'll have some great contributions."

"Commander, for what its worth, I think my Dad would have respected you. He wished most of his career for a C-O who thought like you," Williams said before she reached the door.

Nyx shook her head. "I doubt that highly."

"Nope. He would have counted himself as lucky as I do. And finding myself on the _Normandy_ is almost worth all the rest of it."

The officer's voice was gentle when she spoke. "Get out, Chief, before you get me all teary eyed and ruin my menacing reputation."

The brunette laughed, but complied leaving the Spectre alone. That little red book had been a saving grace for Shepard during the few months she spent embedded with a turian Special Forces unit. There it was not so much that she was female that made that experience hard, it was just being human, and all that entailed in a turian unit, which was complicated by the fact that many of those she worked with simply saw her as some type of political power play. In a lot of ways it was harder than anything she had experienced up to that point in her service. The unit commander did not want her anywhere near his squad and often precluded her from participation in training. Eventually, she won him over, kind of, but she did not know it had happened until they met again under very different circumstances years later.

That little red book got her through a lot of things. No matter what was going on, there always seemed to be something perfect hidden in its pages. A little reminder that there was light, hope, strength, what have you, but there was always _something_ left. On their current mission, she pulled it out a few times, seeking solace and occasionally finding it. But Ashley seemed to need a little guidance at that moment, and Nyx figured with their shared interest in poetry that precious gem might fit the bill.

Stretching her tense neck again, Shepard pulled up the schematics on the screen that had held Ashley's service record book earlier, and poured over the specifications for the trigger Alenko was counting on her to disarm. She would need to know this thing inside and out just in case it had been cannibalized.

"By the stars, I hope they didn't tamper with you," she whispered at the screen.

The situation was just too far off for that hope to come to fruition--or at least that was the assumption she made. It all felt too contrived. Everything about this just made her gut almost cramp in warning. _Why did the signal come back up here? Why now? This system doesn't even have turian interests._

"By all rights, you should not be anywhere near here." Her hands traced one of the power lines to the core. "How did you get out here?"

 

**/5/**

An answer to that very question came nearly seven hours later. Nyx leaned on the disarmed device, her finger tracing over the frozen timer. _03:17_. The numbers blazed red and she could not rip her eyes from them. _This was too close._

"So this Haliat guy, you ever heard of him before, Skipper?" Ashley asked from across the room. She leaned against the wall putting as much distance between herself and the device as possible.

"Not before today. I mean we knew Elysium was the result of pirate factions with designs, but we never …" Nyx stopped and rethought her statement. "I never knew anything more than it was a pirate raid. I assumed it was just a large scale version of your typical snatch and grab--several smaller organizations combining for a big score. Apparently, there was a little more to it, but that was likely above my pay grade."

"He seemed pretty excited when he saw you," Alenko said over his shoulder as he worked on the locked door.

The shrug was instinctual and the answer entirely honest. "What can I say? My fan club is bigger than Saren and that sketchy blonde guy in the wards."

His gaze shot to hers and she noticed what she should not see there. Concern flashed in his eyes before he refocused his attention to the task at hand. Somehow, she knew that comment would come up again, though she knew she would not be the one to broach that topic.

"You think he's still here?" Ashley asked.

"Oh yeah," Shepard crooned, eyes on the timer again. "He's still here. He's waiting for the explosion. He wants to know it's done. A guy like Haliat won't be able to leave here without knowing he accomplished what he set out to. His psyche couldn't take the lingering question."

Williams scoffed. "Yeah, well, this is a check his ass can't cash. I'll be damned if I'm buying it in some damn hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere."

Shepard grinned up at the marine, who seemed to calm a little with the look.

"Finally," Alenko grumbled at the door. "Sorry about that, Shepard."

"No worries. We've still got a minute-forty to surprise him. Let's just hope he didn't go too far," she said as the three of them hurried up the shaft.

They exited the mine via the only remaining access point. Nyx could only guess that it had been left intact because Elanos Haliat's ego would require proof that his plan worked. His sense of self would require witnesses to his prowess, probably because there had been so very many witnesses to his failure during the Blitz, including her.

Rushing out of the mine and onto a windswept plateau, the marines moved at a quick clip. The Mako was a welcome sight, and Shepard halted them just back from the edge as she surveyed the scene.

"That is a lot of guys," she surmised simply and slowly while a plan of attack formed. "Ash, set up here and concentrate on that krogan. Get him down fast. I certainly do not want to dance with him. Alenko, you're with me. We're going to make a run for it, see if we can't get close to some cover before they get a good line on us."

"Why don't we just rush for the Mako?" Kaidan asked.

"What if she's wired?" Her pistol was in her hands. Her eyes dropped to the weapon as she readied it. Since Ashley had procured the powerful sidearm, Shepard had become quite partial to the reliable Rosenkov Materials' Karpov.

Both of her teammates looked at her, their eyes revealing that consideration escaped their notice until the commander voiced the possibility.

"Always think the worst of people in these sorts of situations. That's what Anderson always says. It might get you back home in one piece," Shepard said, turning her head toward the other biotic. He was steady and calm, as usual; in that glance she knew he was prepared.

"Ready, Chief?"

"Full of joy, Skipper."

Nyx could not stifle the laugh. There were times when Williams reminded her way too much of Chief Jensen. "Keep some distance, Alenko. I'd rather not give any sniper they have down there bragging rights on a two-fer."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

"Give me a few seconds, Ash. Then it's all you."

 

**/6/**

In the heat of it all, no one noticed the slip. On the ship, Shepard moved between rank and last name easily. Only when she and the chief spoke privately had the commander ever even called her Ashley, let alone Ash. But the moment the two officers jumped over the edge and made their run down the hill the thought flew out of the marine's head.

"Now!"

The command prompted the first shot. It was perfect. It might have even been the kind of shot that could make Gunny Ellison smile. The second hit the krogan before he found the sniper and dropped him to the ground. If she were lucky, a third would finish him before the redundant organs kicked in. Williams delivered a fourth shot to the head of the massive alien just in case; a riled up krogan was not something her squad mates needed added to their current bucket of armed and pissed off.

Ashley looked up from her scope to survey the field. "Oh shit!" she called over channel before she could stop herself. Williams had heard about the commander charging the lieutenant in some battle of the brains early in the cruise, but she had never actually seen it for herself. It was odd, and a little disconcerting even from a distance, but it sure as hell gave the commander the element of shock and awe.

"Two on your six, L-T," Williams warned as she noticed the pair of men moving toward his position. She swung the barrel his direction and with a single shot she took out one, just as Alenko tugged the other in the air. Then the black-armored commander popped into the field of view of the sniper's scope. The sound of the biotic detonation echoed off the rocks.

When Alenko suggested the chief watch the mission the three biotics went on, she had noticed the way their abilities seemed to react to one another. Like the hilarious chemical reactions her sister Abby would set off when they were kids--two seemingly innocuous things meeting and going haywire. That's what their biotics seemed to do, the abilities acted different elements coming in contact and violently responding to one another. Over the comms during that earlier mission, Ashley had even heard some of the explosive sounds, but it was nothing compared to actually witnessing it. The sound seemed to ring in her ears even with her helmet on and the shockwave was noticeable even from a distance. But Ashley had to admit, Alenko was dead on; maybe, if you were going to stack a basket, biotics was the way to stack it.

"I've got a bead on Haliat," Williams advised once the small force had been decimated by the trio. The smile crept across her face as she noticed him cowering behind the corner of their decrepit Grizzly.

"Hold," Shepard ordered.

The chief kept her sights on the pirate. Ashley was not going to lose her line on him. Then Shepard entered the edge of her viewfinder, taking slow, careful steps. The chief knew Alenko would be a few steps away from their CO, even if she did not have eyes on him.

"Haliat," the commander called out. "Looks like piracy might not be your strong suit."

"Fuck you, Shepard!"

"Yeah, I think I'll pass. But there might be some guys where you are headed that might be interested."

"You're not taking me, bitch!"

When the pirate spun from behind the crate, the man froze mid-stride. He shimmered just like Crosby had on the crew deck. As the commander moved forward, Alenko took a few steps and came into view. The blonde removed the weapon from the pirate's hands.

"Actually, I am. There is a tribunal with your name on it. And after your little admission earlier. I'm pretty sure the Alliance will be more than happy to find you a deep dark hole to rot in." The commander placed one hand on the man's arm and nodded at Alenko. When the field came down, Shepard reacted instantly, yanking the arm behind his back in a wrist lock that the officer used to guide the cursing man to the ground rather roughly. Nyx zip tied Haliat before he could even think to retaliate.

"Chief, care to join us?" Shepard said, kneeling near her target and waving a hand at the sniper.

"On my way," Williams responded as she rolled up out of her prone shooting position.

"Alenko, check the Mako."

"On it," the sentinel replied as he started off toward the vehicle.

Shepard rolled the pirate over and manhandled him into a seated position before walking toward the chief who was taking a more careful route down the slope than the two officers had chosen. Ashley never saw it coming, but then she had not been watching the pirate, her eyes had been on her footing at least until the shockwave bounced her off the slope forcefully, knocking her off her feet. Williams shook her head clear. The explosion seemed to take them all by surprise.

When she surveyed the scene before her, ears ringing brightly, she noticed the scorch pattern on the lighter accents on the back of the black armor. It was the stillness of the form jumpstarted the chief's brain.

"Shepard!" she yelled over the comms as she scrambled to her feet. Both the chief and the lieutenant rushed for the motionless officer. The blast had tossed her against the plateau's face with much more force than it did the chief.

Ashley felt her tight stomach churn when the commander's arm moved and the officer pushed herself off the rocks. "Fucking pirates anyway," the Spectre groaned as her squad skidded toward her position. "Guess he really did not want to be some batarian's new plaything."

Williams could not help but laugh, mostly in relief that Shepard was making really horrible attempts at humor.

"Yeah, guess your matchmaking skills just aren't up to par, Skipper," Ashley chided, as she laid a hand on the other woman's shoulder in an attempt to keep her from moving too much.

Alenko's silence concerned the younger woman. It reminded her of Eden Prime, when he had worried over the commander's unconscious body. The chief suspected that attempt to help had gone much more smoothly than this one would. Something told her Shepard was an easier patient when she was out cold. Of course, Ashley knew the same could be said of her.

"Did they wire the beast?" Nyx asked with a trace of strain in her voice.

"Yes," Alenko replied tersely.

Ashley knew him well enough to know that clipped tone. It usually came out when things went wrong, or went completely to hell.

"Well, did you disarm it?"

The exasperated sigh signaled the question was ridiculous.

"Good," Shepard replied, knowing the lieutenant's signs just as well as the chief. "Williams, raise the _Normandy_. Tell Pressly I need the marine detail down here armed and armored and let him know Adams needs to bring his twidget brigade so we can get this oversized paperweight back to the Alliance."

"Will do, Commander," Ashley replied, getting to her feet quickly.

When she reached the Mako, the chief heard Shepard chastising herself.

"Idiot. You knew better. Can't believe you did not check Haliat before you walked away. Acting like some damn rank amateur."

"Commander," Alenko interrupted, "you're on channel."

"Oh for--"

Williams need not hear the completion of the phrase to guess what Shepard said. The chief did as ordered, assuming that the commander's little personal diatribe likely continued in the privacy of her own helmet while the lieutenant checked her out. It was a sentiment the chief could understand; she herself had directed those types of derisive remarks towards herself or her reflection on occasion throughout her career. Though for her it happened a lot more often since she joined the _Normandy_ crew, mostly because there were a lot of times when Ashley felt like she was too far behind the curve.

 

**/7/**

Like any medic worth their salt, Alenko kept a vigilant watch. Shepard suggested he and Williams head back to the ship, insisting, that after Adams and the team from engineering arrived, she could oversee the removal of the device on her own. But Nyx knew just as she would not leave her team on the surface alone, neither would either of them leave unless directly ordered.

With the tickle of the trickle, the back of her hand went to her forehead again out of instinct. The tap of ceramic on ceramic reminded her that while the breather helmet concealed a multitude of sins relief from that itchy sensation was at least an hour off. Nyx watched Kaidan, his eyes moved eagerly between her and the interface sheathing his forearm. The part most people would find pitiful was that the commander was fairly certain she knew exactly what the scan was going to say.

Her jaw tightened as the wave of nausea swept over her, the little flush and the light feeling were one she hoped to control because vomiting in a breather helmet was not something she wanted to repeat. The little vice-like grip of the headache that seemed to originate near the tickle on her forehead seemed to suggest she probably had a concussion, which meant she would not be sleeping for another eight hours, give or take, especially if Chakwas had any say in the matter. The pain that accompanied her breathing warned Shepard that her medical officer would also be checking up on the commander regularly in regards to whatever rib injuries Shepard had sustained, but Nyx was nearly certain none were broken, though they were bruised to all hell another painful ragged breath told her.

Shaking her head with a snort of a laugh, Nyx started to lean forward on her knees then groaned lightly as she straightened back up. Her ability to self-diagnose the injuries from an explosion of this nature might speak ill of her chosen profession. These were all afflictions the commander experienced before in the field. She did not have a thick medical record, by comparison to other Special Forces operators. Nyx tended to be more careful, though one would be hard pressed to know it by her foolish mistake with Haliat.

Tagging her comms again, Shepard merely said, "Hand."

With that Alenko stood and offered her the desired assistance that the commander really had been loath to ask for. Part of her preferred asking for help rather than looking like a turtle stuck on its back as she tried to battle bruised ribs and a concussion to get to her feet on her own. This was quicker and less physically painful and she knew the act of breathing would be less uncomfortable if she was standing rather than sitting.

"So, what's the damage?" she asked, trying to hold back any sign of the pain and momentary dizziness that struck her with the change of position. Thankfully, Alenko knew the symptoms as well as she; when Nyx got to her feet his hand tightened around hers while the other gripped her elbow to steady her.

"Concussion, major contusions, but no breaks I can see on a field scan. You really should see Chakwas when the ship arrives, get a full work up."

"I'm good," Nyx said with a nod, which caused the lieutenant to loosen his grip on her.  "We need to get this thing off planet and back to First Fleet so we can get back to it."

"Shepard." The tone did not give him away; it was the look in his eyes when he took a half a step toward her. "That was a decent sized blast and you need a full scan. There is no way to know--"

"Nothing's broken and I don't have any chest pain. I should be good for a few hours while we get this done."

The shake of the head was a reaction she got from every medic she had ever met or worked with, though she felt there might be a little more to this reaction, which she could not fault him for. She figured there had been at least a shade of more than just her own typical protectiveness when she charged one of the men flanking him earlier. _It had been the best option at the time, regardless,_ she reminded herself _._

Setting her mic back to mute, Shepard took a long deep breath and held it for a while against the discomfort in her chest. _So far, so good_ , she thought. As long as no shortness of breath cropped up, she would probably be back to her dangerous self before they reached the Armstrong Nebula.

When the _Normandy_ arrived, Shepard again suggested her team return, no need for all of them to watch over the removal of the stages of the probe, but unsurprisingly neither took the offer. The ground team led the group from the ship back into the mine, then Shepard directed a McMillan and Niveda to escort one of the engineers through the part of the mine that had not been collapsed to check for anything she might have missed, while her own team headed back to Haliat's Grizzly.

"Lieutenant, would you be so kind as to get me into this relic?" she asked, tapping the nose carefully.

"I haven't seen one of these in years, Shepard," Ashley said with an appreciation in her tone.

Nyx ran her hand along the sharp lines of the nose. "Yeah, these things were beefy. Probably the only reason this one was still running. Hard to kill."

"Shepard."

Alenko's voice held an odd timber, and when she rounded the vehicle her sidearm was in her hands, though she quickly found it unnecessary when she entered the tank.

"They were clearly not expecting us to walk out of there," Ashley said from behind the officer.

The consoles were all lit up, and there was a live link through to Haliat's ship. Shepard rushed the length of the interior and leaned over the other officer. "I want it all. Name, location, _everything,_ " she said clearly.

"Already on it," Alenko assured.

Nyx leaned away and the pacing began. "Adams, I need one of your people who is good with systems. Alenko's going to need another pair of hands to strip this barge."

"Yes, ma'am," the engineer replied almost instantly.

Rather than make herself too much of a nuisance, Nyx stepped outside the tank and Williams accompanied her. A thin young man in a lightweight navy blue airtight suit rushed toward them at an awkward run. She tilted her head slightly watching his progress. To her surprise, the engineer stopped on a dime and snapped off a sharp salute.

"Ma'am, Specialist Asan reporting."

Shepard returned his salute then made a sweeping gesture toward the door of the tank. "Talk to the Lieutenant."

The commander paced as the two technical gurus pulled the drives, data, and every stitch of information possible out of the vehicle. Overseeing the removal of the device held more promise than she had anticipated, though Shepard would have preferred to be taking Elanos Haliat aboard to be transported back to Alliance custody. Her teeth ground against one another as she replayed it over and over in her head.

_The stasis, disarmed, subdued, secured_ … _except you did not secure him._ She shook her head slightly as her jaw continued to move in a slow tight circle. _How could you not pat him down? That's not even a rookie error, that's just a colossal fuck up. The brass are going to eat this up. Fucking hell, Nyx._

 

[i] Constant is the capitol city of Eden Prime.


	21. Redirection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agebinium offered more than just the return of a stolen nuclear device. It also offered up what Nyx calculated as one of her first real tests of command. All the while she bristled under Chakwas' orders. Medical clearances always grated Shepard's nerves, she understood them and in her own way she respected them. But she did not enjoy the restrictions, typically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to all my readers for their patience and feedback. Also my heartfelt appreciation to the two ladies who continue to lend their time and support and beta for me regularly, LadyA and Chy--you're both amazing writers and I appreciate your input at all stages.

**21 Redirection**

**/1/**

"That's screwed up," Ashley said lowly as the pair crossed the crew deck toward the medbay.

Kaidan could not help but agree. There had been a lot that happened on Agebinium that could be categorized under that particular designation. "Which part?" he replied, as little more sharply than he intended through a tense attempt at a smile.

"Having your past hunt you down like that."

Letting Williams pass through the hatch before him into medical, Alenko waited for the door to close before responding. "From what I understand, Elysium went way beyond screwed up, all the way around."

"That is the understatement of the century, Lieutenant," Dr. Chakwas noted from across the room. Her tone turned somber. "No one there during or directly after the Blitz left that planet unaffected."

"You were on Elysium, Doc?" the chief asked a little too quickly.

Alenko knew full well that Ashley worked off instinct. On the battlefield, her instincts were usually dead on, but outside of combat she usually worked under the same rules of engagement and stepped a little past the line from time to time.

"I was delivering a symposium there on battlefield trauma. Wound up giving more than just a few lectures."

"Is that where you met Shepard?"

Kaidan's hands tightened around the edge of the bed he was leaning against. Deep down he wanted to know these kinds of things about Nyx, but this was not really the way he planned on going about it. Despite that, his attention was a rapt as the chief's.

"It was."

"Was she as stubborn then?" Kaidan asked quickly, taking a page out of the chief's book and asking the first thing that sprang into his mind. Both women chuckled.

"Probably more so," Chakwas revealed as she turned her attention onto the chief.

Ashley grinned. "That would be tough."

"Indeed. But it is not your typical bull-headed operator response with her. I learned very early on that Commander Shepard is a caretaker of sorts. She just tends to do it with weapons and a handful of grenades rather than tea and chicken soup."

Williams glanced up at the doctor rather knowingly, or so Kaidan thought, her little nod and the half beamed smile suggested that the chief had firsthand experience with it. Kaidan noticed that tendency in the commander in little ways as well, though mostly in the field, and especially on the ground at Agebinium.

The last time he had seen the commander use that disturbing little charge of hers had been in their sparring match, but a few hours prior she had used it to pull him out of a potentially hairy situation. She had told Wrex that she did not use it all that much because it disoriented her for a few moments; Alenko knew in that moment she traded her own safety to guarantee his. While he understood what they dashed into on that plateau was a bad situation, he could not help but wonder if her decision might be based on more than just the operational outcome. Strangely, he could not decide whether he wanted there to be more to her choice to charge that pirate or not.

When Chakwas finished with the chief, she moved to the lieutenant. "The commander also told me once she does not like to be kept from her place," the medical officer revealed as she gestured for Alenko to hop up onto the table.

"What place is that?" Ashley asked.

"The simple version?"

Even Alenko nodded when the chief did.

"Between whatever enemy and everyone else," the doctor concluded with a knowing glance.

Kaidan felt his throat tighten. That notion seemed to offer him a semblance of an answer. Even if it did not specifically address some of the choices she made on the ground that day or in the past, it did seem to explain the pattern of behavior he had witnessed from her. She truly did place herself in a position to be both literally and figuratively between her crew and whatever they were up against, but she did the same thing on the Citadel too with that bartender in Chora's Den, Tali, Dr. Michel, and others like them. Even for people she did not know, the commander put herself on the line, became the petite barrier between the dark things of the galaxy and the people just trying to survive out here.

The realization of it was almost dizzying, but Kaidan barely got more than a moment to consider it before the hatch swished open again.

"Who's my favorite medical officer on the _Normandy_?" Shepard said all too playfully.

Kaidan and Ashley both chuckled when they heard Chakwas groan. She looked up at the lieutenant when she asked, "What happened?"

"Some pirate with a death wish," Nyx said dismissively.

"Explosion. Concussion, but there did not appear to be any broken bones," Alenko replied, trying not to let his annoyance show through too boldly.

Shepard hopped up onto the bed Williams was leaning against and tried to hide the wince the rough action prompted. When her eyes met his, she glanced away quickly aware that he noticed.

"You're clear, Lieutenant. Williams, you're dismissed as well," Chakwas noted when she moved past the young woman toward the commander. "And you." There was a slight note of scolding in the medical officer's tone when she started the scan on Shepard.

As much as he wanted to stay and find out the results of the scan and overhear the doctor's orders, Alenko knew that it would not keep up appearances. So he exited with Williams.

"Shepard is totally like how Chakwas said," Ashley noted in a conspiratorial whisper as they walked aft on the crew deck. "Remember all those things she did on the Citadel? And I remember this one time, early on, Shepard dashed into this trio of guys bearing down on Tali--slid across the deck with that shotgun Wrex told her she needed. Kind of like what happened down there today, but with less flair." The chief laughed heartily.

"Guess you were right about that biotic basket," she said, clapping Kaidan lightly on the shoulder. "I think I'm going to crash, L-T. Take it easy."

Alenko made his way to his quarters. As he peeled out of his armor, he could not decide if he was relieved at the thought that what happened on Agebinium aligned with the commander's operational style or not. In a way knowing it was _normal_ for her calmed his anxiety over the situation, which was unsettling in other ways. It boded well for their attempt to keep things separate, keep their service together professional while they kept the other stuff segregated to whatever time they might be able to steal without drawing too much notice.

Of course, he knew he had failed in that segregation on the ground. Kaidan chewed at his bottom lip as he sat on the edge of the bed. Everything up to the point of Haliat blowing himself up had been business as usual, but seeing her body roll off that berm, even under her own power, did something to him. It had been almost as bad as Eden Prime, maybe worse; then he had felt responsible and their connection to one another had been entirely tenuous. His heart seized on Agebinium. His attention was not just on his commanding officer, but also on someone he cared about.

He leaned back across the thin bunk and stared up at the darkened ceiling as he assessed his actions down there in that moment. Kaidan analyzed every single choice he made, trying to determine if he had acted beyond the professional. He shook his head at his boots. Everything he had done was standard procedure, only the worry which still made his chest tighten was beyond the scope of SOP. It was that niggling concern that prickled the back of his neck that differed from the reaction he would have had if any other crew member had been the one thrown by that explosion. There was relief in the analysis, a slight hint of solace in the fact that he had not let his heart rule his head in the moment. Though, he knew that might not always be the case.

 

**/2/**

Shepard spent most of the time in the medbay nodding and trying not to look disinterested when Chakwas told the commander all the things she already knew. This was not her first rodeo. These types of injuries were old hat for Shepard. She would be awake come hell or high water for the next twelve hours because the doctor wanted to err on the side of caution. And for the next few days every breath she took would remind Nyx just how foolish she had been.

Her pace through the ship was a little slower than usual and she walked up the stairs slowly rather than at her usual skipping clip. Stopping next to Pressly, the navigator shot her a quick glance out of the corner of his eye.

"Where's Ensign Encanto with my report?" she asked quietly.

"Still working on it, I believe." His tone mirrored the exasperation Shepard felt.

"Drag him into the comms."

"Yes, ma'am," he said a little too cheerfully.

Pressly confided in her that he did not trust intelligence officers, and Ensign Encanto had moments of shifty behavior that set both officers on edge. Nyx entered the comms and took a seat in the first chair she came to as the dizziness made everything swirl around her again. She was not sure if the coffee was helping or making it worse. Even though it was bound to keep her awake, the commander figured she might just have to forego the caffeine until her head returned to normal.

Several long slow deep breaths later the intelligence officer of the _Normandy_ scampered through the door, shoulders hunched as he clung to a console and a datapad. Pressly walked in behind him, standing long and tall and looking much more intimidating than the commander recalled ever having seen him look before. Encanto froze when Nyx turned her face toward him. With a touch on the shoulder, the navigator restarted the stalled movement of the younger man. Shepard watched her executive officer for a moment. He seemed to have taken his cue from the commander, given that she was sitting, Pressly opted to stand, taking up a crisp and precise parade rest stance and wearing a serious look of disapproval that kept the ensign on edge.

_Well, goddamn Pressly. Didn't think you had that in you._ Shepard bit back the smile. She had not seen this side of the XO yet, but it would explain the wave of shoulder straightening that occurred when they walked the decks together. Nyx was fairly certain it was not for her, because she could pass most of the crew on her own without that type of reaction, though there were a few that still reacted to her in that type of nervous manner.

Ensign Marcus Encanto looked the part of an intelligence analyst--short, thin, and bookish. He quickly set up the console and delivered a datapad to the commander. When he tried to hand one to the XO, Pressly's eyes darted quickly to the chair opposite the commander before returning to the ensign who gulped audibly.

The commander pressed her lips together and bit down on them. Pressly mentioned to her that he and the young officer had come to a head once or twice over procedure. Shepard just had not expected to see the after effects of their exchanges played out live and in living color. 

Glancing at the device in her hands, Shepard thumbed through the collation of the information that had been gathered on Agebinium. Her eyes rose and moved from the navigator to the ensign. "Good morning, gentlemen," she greeted, realizing she had not acknowledged them. "You can begin whenever you're ready, Mr. Encanto."

Shepard leaned back and waited as Encanto fidgeted while pulling up something on the screen. Most of his time was spent with Pressly and Yeoman Lowe, formatting and compiling information to send back to Fleet. He had not been part of her briefings as yet, because there had been very little official intelligence coming to the _Normandy_ since they put out. For this reason and others, the CO forgave the nerves.

"There was no implication from Command, in the orders or the briefing that they were aware of why or how the probe's signal beacon came back online. I forwarded the identification information from the probe back to command, but as yet there has been no reply from the Fleet," the young officer stated.

Deciding no response was preferable to the one forming in her mind, Shepard waited.

"Lieutenant Alenko was able to secure a last known location on the _MSV Etamin_ , it was the vessel Haliat was in contact with while on Agebinium."

"Do we have a transponder for the _Etamin_?"

"Yes. And I forwarded it and the location to command."

Shepard winced. "Tell me you went through Anderson," she said with more than a trace of irritation in her voice.

"Of course, Commander, as per standing orders." The young officer nodded busily. "It also seems that the vessel was actively raiding while the pirate was setting up his ambush here. Several manifests were transmitted to the Grizzly and responses went back out with orders for the cargo and the crews of three vessels that were overtaken during the period."

The commander took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. "I'm assuming copies of the orders are in this dossier?" she asked shaking the datapad at him.

"Affirmative."

"Last known?"

"Cruising in Satent system of the Pylos Nebula," Encanto stated with certainty.

"Human vessel?"

He nodded. "According to the listed registration, but there is no information in the data about his current crew."

"What does intel have on his people?"

The ensign stiffened. "Nothing concrete. He uses whoever he can recruit or pick up at various ports, though most of his known associates are human and oddly enough, batarians."

"And that surprises you?" the commander asked incredulously. She looked up at him from under her brow. She shook her head and turned to Pressly. "Contact Anderson. If anyone is near that sector tell them I just need the transponder tracked until we get there. I don't want this cockroach scurrying into the unknown. And tell Joker, after the rendezvous with the _London_ , we're taking the scenic route to Armstrong. I want to find this ship before it has a chance to disappear on the dark side of some moon."

"Aye aye, Commander," Pressly replied, finally speaking. "I'll keep you apprized."

Nyx nodded. "Anything else, gentlemen?"

"No, Commander," Pressly answered for both of them.

"Excellent." Shepard tapped the datapad against the side of her hand as she stood, leaving the other two officers in the comm room.

 

**/3/**

The temptation was always there. Vyrnnus liked to keep the prize within arm's reach, even if he never allowed any of the students to raise their hand to take what they needed. Kaidan's class had been drilling for hours. They were all thirsty, all hungry, and bordering on fatigued. His own head pounded and his body felt heavy from the exertion. Even after all this time under the turian's tutelage, Alenko still felt the strain as keenly as he had when he first arrived.

Rahna looked up at him from the other side of the table; her formerly bright gray eyes seemed dull. A part of him thought it might be an effect of the dark circles that ringed them. Of course, everyone had those, at least everyone in Kaidan's class. Her pink tongue darted out and smoothed along her lips as her eyes dropped to the glass.

He learned to read her body language early on. He knew the anxiety that lay behind the strain in her eyes, in the tension of her brow, the way her cheek trembled when she concentrated. With the wince it all fell away, melting into a look of defeat. It made his heart hurt to see Rahna, or any of them really, suffering like he was. Deep down he knew they all were. They all dreaded this part of the day--when their hands were made useless by the orders of the teacher some called the _mad turian_.

Mad seemed a little extreme. Vyrnnus seemed angry, and he was mean, but Alenko was not sure that he was crazy, well, at least certifiably so. The young human did not get along well with Vyrnnus. From the very first time they met, Kaidan seemed to piss the turian off, perhaps it was the realization that his little taunt about heading the dreadnought that killed his father would not work on the Alenko kid. It might possibly have also been due in part to the laughter Kaidan's response had prompted. In the end it mattered none. Vyrnnus targeted him and it just made the young human push himself that much harder to not give the turian the satisfaction of breaking him--not because he was a turian, but because Kaidan never liked bullies.

Watching Rahna narrow her eyes at the glass on the table between them, Kaidan found himself praying that she might get it to move this time. Part of him wanted to help her, but somehow Vyrnnus had noticed Alenko and others helping their fellow students and the reprimands for it were harsh enough to discourage assistance in the future.

_Come on Rahna. You can do it. Just a little more,_ he whispered to her inside his own head. When he noticed the shimmering sensation of her field breaking again, his shoulders slumped with a heavy sigh.

Her eyes closed with another more intense wince. He guessed it was the start of a migraine; a lot of the kids got them on days like this. Alenko knew that was just going to make the exercise worse. When she looked up again, her eyes shot around the room quickly and he read the desperation there muddled by the pain. Her hand shot out quickly, but the water barely wetted her lips when the hand slammed her arm down on the table.

Rahna howled as the glass shattered. Kaidan and those in the vicinity were sprayed with a mix of cold water and stinging bits of glass. The tickle of blood trailed down Alenko's temple as he saw Rahna's tears streaming down her cheeks. Her face was contorted in a voiceless scream that finally gave way to a loud grating inhale before the wail pierced through his frozen mind.

There was no rhyme or reason to it. But he stood up. Vyrnnus turned toward the movement. As the alien straightened to his full height of nearly seven feet, he tilted his head downward slightly while his eyes issued a clear challenge. Why he accepted it, Kaidan never really knew. The steps were quick, a foot on his chair, one on the table, then a little leap put the human between Vyrnnus and Rahna.

"You wish to save the damsel in distress, do you _boy_?"

Kaidan stayed silent, more so because he had no answer.

"I believe you may have seen far too many vids," Vyrnnus advised with a chuckle. When the human still remained silent, the turian took another step, looming over the young man. "I have free reign here, boy. Do not test me."

"I'm not testing you. But we need to eat. We need water. Starving and dehydrating us doesn't make us tougher," Kaidan finally countered. "It just makes it harder to get the results you want."

The pain in his head wrapped around from the back. It was not until Kaidan found he could not breathe that what happened seemed to register. The blade of the knife gleamed in a sinister manner in the stark bright lighting of the dining hall in Dormitory C. Try as he might, Alenko could not get the hand from around his neck--nothing seemed to loosen it in the slightest.

"You have pushed against me since you arrived here, Alenko," Vyrnnus grumbled as he inched closer to Kaidan.

The knife moved with him, slowly, deliberately. When the teenager made a grab at the hand holding the military-issue Talon, Vyrnnus tried to slap the kid's hand away.

In that moment Kaidan knew he had to do something or he was going to die. The movements started frantically, nothing seemed to work all the mnemonics he thought he knew did nothing. As his lungs burned, something finally worked. The barrier shimmering around the young biotic made the turian laugh. The sound stopped when Alenko managed to discharge the powerful sheathe meant to protect. The boy slid off the table gulping air greedily.

When he looked up the rumble started, it was the most menacing sound Alenko could remember hearing up to that point. The knife gleamed. Vyrnnus' eyes burned. The clatter of claws against the metal bulkhead tightened Kaidan's chest. When the knife rose again, it was all gone; at least until the shimmering crackle seemed to ring in his ears. With the force of the impact, there was a loud snap that seemed to reverberate off of every surface in the room.

Alenko crouched on the floor again, blue arcs skimming his flesh and the residual static sparking his nerves. When his eyes moved across the floor, he saw Vyrnnus laying there, not moving. His amber eyes met the disturbingly light gray of the instructor that had tormented them all expecting to see the same fire that made the boy frantic so many times before. But there was nothing. They were dull, blank, holding an accusation that bore into the young biotic's head. Kaidan sat back, his mind in erratic with the tumultuousness of thought and emotion, as he pulled his arms around himself.

The barest whimper cracked the silence and he turned toward it, meeting Rahna's gaze. She was shaking, eyes wide, silent tears still running down her face as she cradled her arm to her chest gingerly. With the intention of comforting her, Kaidan shifted to his right. Her feet scrambled against the floor as she tried to distance herself from him, agitation and fear shone in her eyes. When his reached out to her, Rahna opened her mouth and released the most blood curdling scream he could ever recall hearing.

With that sound the lieutenant sat bolt upright in his bunk. The tightness crept up his neck and felt like it wrapped around his skull. Kicking off the blankets Kaidan sat up. Drenched in sweat, the breeze created by the environmental systems chilled the moisture on his skin. The shiver it created did not help the tension in his body or the pain in his head. He slid off the bed and dug out a dose of painkillers which he swallowed dry then grabbed the dosed syringe from the same locked box. He held it to his thigh and pressed the mechanism, wincing with the sting of the injection.

A check of the time told him shift would be changing soon, which meant this was not the part of the ship he wanted to be in at that moment. He pulled on a pair of fatigue pants and padded out of the O-quarters, making a bee line for the observation deck. He still could not decide why people avoided that spot. With a shrug he wondered if it might be his penchant for hiding out there when his migraines would kick up that kept other crew clear, but that seemed a little far-fetched even for this ship. The darkness and quiet of that area of the _Normandy_ were what attracted him to the room.

He did not notice the figure when the door opened, once the hatch sealed behind him, the voice told him he was not alone.

"Lieutenant?" There was a softness to her tone. Her greeting was followed by gentle yawn as she stretched.

Knowing the time, he also knew she was another two hours from being cleared by Chakwas, Alenko had been bold enough to ask his CO what the doctor ordered after the fact. He had been a little surprised when Shepard revealed that his field diagnosis was mostly correct.

"Not the best choice for someone who's suffering a concussion," Kaidan observed as he looked around the room.

"I was fine until I finished my book. Then the combination of the stars and the core's hum tried to lull me to sleep. Guess I'm lucky you happened by."

Alenko did not fight the smile her admission prompted. "I guess so," he agreed.

She was curled up on the sofa in a tank top and her fatigues; her uniform blouse and her boots had been abandoned before he happened upon her.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He could only assume she was studying him as best she could in the low light. Her face was cast in a pale blue glow that seemed to hide most of the signs of her fatigue and injuries, he could only guess that his discomfort must be incredibly obvious if she was able to read it off him in this low light.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"And a horrible liar," Shepard replied with a grin.

He sat near her, nearer than he might have normally, as he laughed. He was not sure if it was the movement or the sound, or both, but the sudden shift in intensity of the pain brought his hand to his forehead as a groan rose in his throat.

Her hand was light and warm on his neck as Shepard bent in an attempt to catch his lowered gaze. "Is there something I can do, Kaidan?"

He shook his head slowly, trying not to anger the tormentor in his head. "No. I've already taken care of it. Now I just have to wait for it to kick in," he said in a voice just above a whisper.

Her voice lowered similarly. "Do you want me to leave?"

"And risk you falling asleep before Chakwas can clear you?"

Her warm smile brought his own back to his lips. Kaidan let his hand drop across the back of the couch where they sat facing one another; his fingertips grazed her bare shoulder.

"Are the ribs feeling any better?" he asked

The opposite shoulder lifted. "Making it a little painful to breathe, but it's my own fault really."

"We all make mistakes, Shepard."

She looked out the window at the stars. "Except that this one could have cost one or all of us our lives. If Haliat had a detonator, it could have been you or Williams given the right set of circumstances. I know better, but I just totally dropped the ball."

Kaidan knew she was right, but a part of him still wanted to offer some semblance of comfort. There were no words he could find that would make her forgive herself, so he tried the only other thing he could think of--distraction.

 

**/4/**

When the back of Kaidan's hand grazed her cheek, Nyx selfishly turned into the touch. It had been near on a week since they had a more than a bare moment to themselves. It was more trying than she thought it might be. Before the little display in the wards, the two of them seemed to find one another too often; it was one of the things that sort of brought things to a head for both of them. Now that she looked forward to those types of quiet moments that used to sneak up on her at every turn, they all but nearly vanished.

His lips brushed hers delicately at first then their mouths met again with a little more urgency. Once the exchange calmed, the kiss broke, Alenko's fingers still caressing her face and neck.

"What was that for?" she asked with a soft smile, looking up into his eyes which bespoke his fatigue.

"Because I finally could."

Her grin widened, but his smile did not quite reach his eyes. When she reached toward him, he pulled away before she touched him. "Are you sure there's nothing I can do?" she asked, studying him as her fingers curled back at his response.

Before she could withdraw her hand, he wrapped it in his and lifted it to his lips, pressing a light kiss on the meaty part of her palm below her thumb. "Not really anything anyone can do. Though, I appreciate the concern." He stroked her captured hand lightly, watching the action. "When they are like this, touch, no matter how soothing or good intentioned, can cause just as much discomfort, sadly." With the last word, he offered her a look that suggested he was as disappointed with that fact as she found herself to be.

"I'm sorry. I--"

The barest shake of his head stopped her explanation. "How's your head?" he asked, turning the tables on her.

"The dizziness and nausea passed a few hours ago. The headache," she paused and looked up at him with the realization that the throbbing she experienced for the last six hours was nothing by comparison to that which brought him to the observation room, "lingers." The weakness in that final word oozed with empathy.

The ship's medical officer had informed her about the lieutenant's propensity for migraines early on in the cruise after Chakwas pulled him from the combat rotation at one point. Shepard queried the doctor and got the skinny on the issue, but then when the commander had happened across the lieutenant in the throes of one later she got a little more pertinent information from him. The previous iterations she witnessed for herself seemed severe at the time, but they clearly paled to the symptoms Alenko currently exhibited.

"At least you're feeling better. How long does Chakwas say the ribs will take?" he asked, running his fingertip along the edge of the little line of a gash that skirted her hairline. He leaned toward her, as if examining it, though she doubted there was much he could discern in the low light.

His thumb swept lightly down her temple, grazing her cheek. Her breathing became shallower as she allowed herself to be drawn toward him again. "A few days, maybe a week, tops, to find my way back to normal."

He nodded. The tiredness and strain in his eyes made her feel guilty, because in that moment Nyx wanted nothing more than to strip away that hair's breadth of space between them.

"Kaidan," she said finally, unwilling to be too selfish. "I should probably …"

When his fingers traced the curve of her ear, his voice lowered just enough to muddle her mind. "I would really prefer it if you stayed." He reinforced his wishes with a light kiss, withdrawing only so far as he had been a moment earlier. "That way I can be sure you get through your last few hours of forced wakefulness."

"You know you don't have to put yourself through this."

"What? The torture of stealing two hours from a sleeping ship, alone, with you, in one of the most abandoned corners on the boat." This smile reached his eyes, though it was not nearly as bright as others she had seen. "This is exactly what I need right now. And more importantly exactly what I’ve wanted since we put out from the Citadel."

"Then stop asking me about my medical clearances," she chided.

"Done," Kaidan agreed, closing the distance again and cradling her head in this hand.

The guilty feeling dissipated; replaced, instead, the comfortable wash of warmth peppered with that little jittery rush that she remembered from the wards. He stayed true to his word, turning the topic of conversation onto the book she had read in her attempt to keep herself awake. As footsteps started to ring through the hull from the stairwell each withdrew in their own ways--his hands crossed over his chest as he shifted to face the window, while she stood and stretched before the slow pacing began--each flipping the switch that segregated them as officers.

From that point on their conversation centered on the information gleaned from the Grizzly on Agebinium and the next step for the _Normandy's_ crew. Much of the information, Shepard was sure, the lieutenant already knew. And he did not seem the least bit surprised to learn that the commander planned to try and chase down the pirate’s vessel.

"I'm sure Haliat had a failsafe. And good money says they are already running. On a mission like that, I would have put a four to six hour timer on a coded burst or actual communication. It could be possible they were running before we got off the planet, depending on when the last burst went out."

"From the looks of the communication logs on the tank, he updated just about the time he talked to you," Alenko declared absently.

"Encanto neglected to mention that in his report." There was a tightness in her tone that she could feel in her own body. "Either way, by now they know things went south and when they get nothing from that Grizzly, they’ll be on the run. I'm just hoping we can pick them up before they get too far."

"Could be another possibility," Kaidan said, standing and crossing to the glass. "They might be waiting for you, well, the Alliance, to respond. We could be walking into another ambush."

"It's only an ambush if you aren't expecting it." Nyx walked over to him, stepping deep into his personal space. He smiled down at her then she rose on her tiptoes to meet his lips. Nyx knew she was indulging, but it seemed safe to do so at the moment. "And I always expect the worst."

 

**/5/**

“Seems a sound policy,” Kaidan muttered.

“When I manage to follow it consistently,” Shepard said with a little tinge of irritation, which dissipated easily when he hooked his finger under her chin.

It was hard to fight the desire to lose himself in this, in her. A sharp tingle danced up his spine, when her arms wrapped around his waist. Her hands splayed across his back and he wanted to just languish in it--her touch, her presence, the newness of and comfort he found in this connection.

When those bright blue eyes blinked up at him, Kaidan ran his thumbs over her cheeks. That was the look he craved, open and so telling, almost too honest. He could see it--her desire as well as her struggle. It was strange, moving from conversations about operational modality to having her in his arms. It was just another clear reminder of Nyx’s uniqueness but at the same time their sameness. Shepard knew him in a way no other woman he had met could; not only was she a biotic, but she was a marine. She understood what he dedicated himself to and pushed himself toward, because she did the same.

Kaidan stood there, arms wrapped around her in that dark corner as the ship quieted down again. He stared out at the steady light of the stars, resting his cheek against the top of her head, content in the stillness of the moment. When she squirmed slightly, the lieutenant loosened his grip, albeit reluctantly.

“You’re almost as metronymic as the pulse of the drive core,” she said, slipping out of his grip.

His hand trailed along her arm, and grasped her hand before she completely severed their contact. “How do you mean?”

“Too relaxing a combination,” she replied with a smile. “Strong heartbeat, that light stroke you were drawing on the back of my neck. It has been a long time since I fell asleep on my feet, but I was almost there.”

“Sorry.” He tugged at her hand, bringing her closer.

“Don’t be. Any other time I’d more than happily go out like that.”

“Really?” The rumble in his voice did not surprise him, and it made her smile up at him with a warm coyness that was oozed pure temptation.

“Don’t play modest with me.” Her hands started to move up his chest toward his shoulders then she stopped; he assumed it was due to her recollection about his earlier mention of the tenderness in his head and neck. Though he appreciated the consideration, another part of him damned the rebellious tormentor that precluded him from savoring the touch he craved.

“I’m not playing.”

She laughed lightly. “Of course. Not in the least.”

The way she looked at him sparked his pulse. He dove for her; content to lose himself to that look, to her. But her temperance brought a shock to his fervor.

“I should go,” she managed slowly and in a tone that lacked conviction as she pulled away.

Her hand patted against his chest as she nodded a few times trying to convince them both that her departure was the best route in that moment. Another quick kiss preceded her retreat with the explanation that the doctor might clear her early.

The room was starkly empty with her absence. The silence only gently disturbed by the barest hum of the drive core on the deck below; it was something one could only hear in the quietest times of the day. Kaidan's head was not nearly as quiet. Beneath the weakening grasp of the migraine, his mind raced, and too many of his thoughts seemed to swirl around the almost innocuous statement she made.

_I always expect the worst._

He could hear it in that calm, operational tone she used; the one tinged with a note of tension which suggested she was already considering the possibilities. It matched the trademark keenness in her gaze, though there were traces of something else, something almost fearful, hovering just beneath the surface. Kaidan was not entirely sure what to make of those six little words.

Operationally, it seemed a sound strategy, which his time on the _Normandy_ had proven more than once. It was like she said on Agebinium: _if one expects the worst of a situation, then they might not be too thrown off by surprises, and they stand a better chance of going home alive_. Despite this very plausible application of the statement, the lieutenant could not shake the feeling that it could be more than that.

The darkness beyond the barrier pinpricked by distant points of light allowed him a sight to lose himself in. Her revelation almost felt like the candid yet covert little warning he had offered her earlier in the cruise. _Always leave yourself a way out_. He had learned that the hard way, personally and professionally. And he could not shake the feeling that Shepard in her own way was passing on something she had learned the same way. What she could not realize was that in too many ways, he carried a myriad of reasons to do precisely that which she suggested.

Exhaling quickly, Kaidan ran his hands through his hair; the tenderness had subsided nearly completely, though the residual tightness remained. Trying to classify her statement, he tried looking at this thing from the start. Shepard intrigued him from their first accidental meeting. Their growing friendship and their professional association merely intensified that little spark that popped when she joined him at that bar. There had been great relief as well as additional strain in learning that he was not alone in his infatuation. And now he found himself in this weird space with his commanding officer, harboring a desperate desire to know her better.

Trouble was that the prospect of her knowing him raised doubt in his mind. His past was not only the impetus for his warning, but it seemed to play right into hers as well. Of course, he was nearly certain that she could not expect what she could find in his past, nor did he know how to approach it carefully.

Leaning against the glass again he looked out at the stars as the question bore through his mind. _How will she react? What might she say when she realizes who you are? Will she still look at you the same way when she finds out what kind of man you actually are?_ Kaidan asked his reflection before he spun and pressed his back against the glass. The barest shade of warmth shone, as he hoped she might not see him as some savage mutant. Though he had more than enough evidence to suggest that monster might just be precisely what she saw. It was what Rahna and his friends all saw. It was what his parents and siblings saw. It had been what the Alliance saw after the incident at BAaT.

How could he honestly expect that Shepard would not see him like that as well?

The quick kick of his heel against the transparent barrier reverberated through his spine. He wanted to hope she would see past it. He wanted to believe in the chance that he was not lining them both up for a tremendous disappointment. Part of him wanted to just tell her and get it over with. But he was not ready to deal with her looking at him like a freakish miscreant. Selfishly, he was not ready to let go of this yet, of her.


	22. Infiltration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy seeks out Haliat's ship and crew in the Satent system.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Ladyamesindy and Chyrstis for their wonderful beta assistance with this piece they are absolutely amazing.

**22 Infiltration**

**/1/**

Garrus paced the width of the alcove in front of Shepard's door uncertain how he felt about the current situation, and about bringing it up to the commander. He was not a permanent part of the crew, he knew. Like the other aliens on board--Wrex, Liara, and Tali--he assumed his presence temporary. Every time he looked around the ship he discovered subtle and overt reminders of that fact. The human faces surrounding him clearly marked him as other, but the commander never made him feel like an outsider.

"Have Alenko and Adams head the group heading over to the _London_ ," he heard Shepard say. From the way her voice carried and played off the metal, Garrus guessed she was either in the stairwell or at the top of it.

"You're not going over, Commander?" Pressly asked.

"Not even if Lindholm engraved the invitation herself."

Both officers shared a quick laugh. The turian heard the swish of the door to the CIC, but there was no sound to signal the commander's approach, only her appearance a few seconds later as she turned the corner.

"Vakarian," she said in that jovial way she usually did.

"Commander, can we talk? Privately?"

There must have been something in his tone that gave him away. Her head tilted just that much and her sharp eyes narrowed, reminding him of his father's. It was uncanny the way this small human female seemed to be able to channel the most intimidating turian the C-Sec officer ever encountered. It was an impression he knew was heavily tainted by the terse relationship he had with his father, even when they did not see eye to eye Garrus always respected him.

"Sure." Shepard pointed at the door behind him. As they entered, she strode past him, tossing the datapad she had brought down from the bridge with her onto the desk along the wall. "What's on your mind?"

Garrus clicked his teeth together for a moment trying to decide how to word it. "I don't like this, Shepard."

Her eyebrows raised in question. "What might that be?" she asked, challenging him.

The turian knew he might be overstepping, but any other time an issue arose the commander heard him out; he merely hoped that would be the case this time around. "I don't like being kept in the dark."

Shepard nodded and crossed her arms, her glare easing slightly. "I'm sure. But of all the non-Alliance crew on this boat, I assumed you would be the most likely to understand that orders are orders. You served with the Hierarchy. You surely must understand that sometimes the choice is made for me."

Crossing his arms, his jaw tightened. "Why now?"

"I think it is less about the timing. Alliance Command-- Well, no. Let me rephrase that. Admiral Hackett gives me a lot of leeway on the missions he forwards from other officers in the Fleet. He knows me; trusts my judgment. But not every officer has the same faith in me or my decision making abilities as the admiral."

"So you're saying it was someone that disagrees with your crew selection?" Garrus asked cautiously.

"I'm not sure it is as simple as that. This officer and I have crossed swords before. I've pushed her in the past, much farther than she likes to be pushed, which makes her more inflexible with me. It was likely more about the fact that she was ordered to seek my team out for this at all, more than the makeup of it. If I had to guess, the order to limit mission participation was her attempt to rile me," Shepard confided.

Garrus understood the phenomenon, he and Executor Pallin had a similar relationship towards the end of his tenure at Citadel Security. "If I may be so bold, what happened?"

Shepard laughed and gestured toward the table. "Sit. One thing I've noticed, across the board, is that when an officer reaches a certain level, they don't like to be challenged, even when they need and deserve to be."

"On that we can agree." He took the seat across from the commander and pressed his hands against his thighs as he sat rigidly straight.

"Let's just say that this particular admiral and I did not see eye to eye on a lot of things, which led to ruffled feathers and a bucket of bad blood between us."

"Come again," Garrus replied quickly.

"Umm… bad blood. Just … uh … ill will, a lack of trust and respect, I guess. She doesn't think I'm a capable officer and doubts my abilities in the field, to the point that she has questioned not only my command in the past, but also my commission as an officer."

"Ah. Sounds like C-Sec."

Shepard nodded. "We all have a little red tape here and there.

Garrus shook his head. "Sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth," he muttered, thinking aloud.

"How so?"

"All too often it gets in the way. Lets the scum of the galaxy slip through the net so they can keep doing what they do."

Shepard leaned forward and folded her hands together on the top of the table. "This sounds more like a specific complaint, than a general observation, Vakarian."

The turian looked up at her. "Maybe it is." He weighed it for a moment then decided to chance it. "A few years back there was a big push to curb the black market trading on the Citadel. There was always a little of this or that running around, but we discovered there was a massive increase in the organ trade on the station. I don't mean a few body parts here and there--I'm talking _major_ influx of organs--human, turian, krogan, even quarian, which are very hard to get your hands on. It was so marked that we at C-Sec were worried that there could be a lab breach somewhere, or worse, someone running around hacking up victims and disposing of them in the bowels of the station."

"Damn."

"We ran genetic testing on some of the evidence--standard operating procedure. Found that the donor of a turian liver we seized was alive and kicking, which was odd given that turians only have the one and it's tough to survive without. Eventually, we linked him to a salarian geneticist named Saleon. His lab was completely clean so we brought some of his people in for a chat."

"Get anything?" Shepard asked, leaning forward attentively.

"In a manner of speaking--one young kid started bleeding profusely during the interrogation. Medical checked him out and he had incisions all over his body."

"What the hell?"

Garrus snorted. "My thoughts exactly. They ran some tests. Found out that these employees were being used like living test tubes."

Shepard's eyes widened and her jaw dropped slightly.

"The good doctor was cloning their organs, growing them inside these people. Then he would harvest them and pay them pittance compared to what he was getting for the organs."

Garrus shook his head, clasping his hands together tightly as he continued. The situation still riled him and turned his stomach. "I remember this one quarian. He was on his pilgrimage and got himself in a tight spot. The doctor had cut into him more than fifteen times. There was nothing the doctors could do for him. They removed the extra organs that had not grown properly, but it was too late. He died a few days after the surgery. His body just could not recover from what Saleon had done to him."

"Wait. So if it did not work right, he just left whatever went wrong inside these people?" The commander grimaced at the prospect.

"Yeah. Lost five of the seven employees we found due to complications from the deformed organs that he just left inside them."

Shepard rubbed her forehead slowly, eyes closed. "Tell me you got that bastard."

"Had him dead to rights. Got the warrants, went to his lab, but it was completely destroyed. He kidnapped about a half dozen of his remaining employees and managed to get his ship out of docking before we could lock it down. Defense forces refused to shoot him down because of the hostages."

Her hand continued to move across her forehead as a far off, troubled look settled over her. "Tough call."

"No," Garrus shot back. Shepard looked back up at him, her brow lowering over her eyes. "Easy call. He had already killed five. With his track record, best guess said at least half the people he took were dead already, but just didn't know it yet. And he'd get more living test tubes if he got away. So more would die. It was an easy call. They were just too scared to take the shot. Said the ship was too close to the station."

"They were right."

"What?" His hands pressed flat to the table top and he leaned towards the small human. "How can you say that?"

"If the ship was too close to the station the explosion wouldn't just kill Saleon and his hostages, the debris could have blown back into one of the wards--into people's homes, into markets, public spaces. The number of people that could have been hurt or killed was too much to risk."

The turian stood quickly. _They were wrong. She's wrong. Stopping Saleon was worth the chance_.

"I get it, Vakarian. I really do. I've been on both sides. I've taken the risky shot and gotten lucky, and I've had to let the big ugly walk because it had to be done, or worse, because it was orders," Shepard said as she stood. "Did you ever find his ship?"

"Eventually. Not soon enough. Bastard changed his name to Dr. R. Heart."

Shepard groaned lowly.

"Exactly. I think it was his idea of a joke. He got his hands on another ship and equipped it to keep right on working. I've found traces of his work on the Citadel since, but not in the quantities he put out before."

"Do you know the name of the ship?"

When he glanced over at her, there was a moment when the tension in his back eased up. "MSV Fedele. I even have his transponder codes."

A lightness washed over him, when the mischievous smile curled over the human's face. "You know, with those codes, I could get some extra eyes on this, so to speak. Put out a request to Fleet to inform me if anyone happens across that boat. Never hurts to look, you know?"

"Thanks, Shepard."

Nyx turned toward him and crossed her arms over her chest. "I can't promise we'll find him. But I'll pull the strings I have."

"I appreciate that. I'd just like the chance to give this guy what he deserves." His gaze turned back to her when she laid a hand on his arm.

"I'm not promising that either. We'll check it out. And address the situation we find."

"Shepard," Garrus replied, his shock evident.

The commander shook her head. "This isn't about vendettas or vengeance, Vakarian. We'll investigate, and deal with the situation we find, as we find it."

The turian stared at her, his anger threatening to boil back up. "But you're a Spectre. You have the authority--"

Her hand went up, palm toward him and he stopped cold. "Not going there. I know Spectres have free reign, and that's exactly what's got us out here in the first place."

Shaking his head, he knew she was right. _Saren._ "I'm sorry, Shepard. I did not think--"

"Nope. It's tough to be in that place. You don't think I haven't jumped someone for what I thought was a bad call? I'm just not quite ready to start cribbing from Saren's playbook, if you catch my meaning. But we can see about dragging this salarian Dr. Frankenstein in and handing him over to C-Sec."

"It's Dr. Saleon actually."

"It's … never mind," Shepard replied with a shake of her head as she bit back a laugh, even so she couldn't help but smirk just a hair, at herself and Garrus.

"Commander," Pressly's voice called over the intercom. "We'll be in orbit on Klensal in thirty minutes."

"Thank you, X-O." Her hand came down on Garrus' shoulder. "Send me a copy of those codes and give them to Pressly as well. I'll leave order for him to put out the request to Fleet and I'll touch base with a few old friends beyond that as well. We'll see what shakes loose."

"I appreciate it, Shepard."

"You're welcome, Vakarian. Could you let Wrex and Williams know we're in the window?"

"Sure thing," he replied, straightening to leave.

From everything he had seen since meeting Shepard on the Citadel she was a human of action, not of paperwork. Or at least that was what he thought until now. That conversation smacked of one he had with his father at C-Sec. Again Garrus noted how uncanny it was that the commander seemed to remind him of the man who he felt pushed him into a certain mold his entire life.

Deep down he was still embarrassed about letting his emotions get the better of him, but Saleon and people like him, used and abused people that had nothing. It was indecent and it grated Garrus to his very core. No matter how he tried to bury it, he could still recall that young quarian--KarShan nar Yaska. He was probably about Tali's age when he died, that thought served only to make it sting a little more sharply. For a moment he wondered if Tali knew him or his family, wondered if C-Sec had successfully gotten word to the Migrant Fleet of his passing, and he wished once more he had sent his own condolences to the man's people.

Garrus inhaled sharply. _No. If we_ _… When we find Saleon. Once he's placed in custody, then perhaps I can in good conscience offer my sympathies_. He headed up the stairs toward the bridge to get the codes to the navigator as quickly as possible. Perhaps he would be lucky and someone would spot him soon.

 

**/2/**

The _Normandy_ was orbiting the dark side of Anedia, having discharged her drives. The possibility that the pirates might have made a last stand in the Satent system came of nothing. When the Alliance frigate arrived in system there was no trace of the vessel, which was no surprise to anyone, really. Pressly leaned over the console Serviceman Tanaka manned. _Where could they have run to?_ he asked himself before returning to the star charts.

The entire combat team milled around his bridge, looking for possibilities. The krogan seemed to have had the best idea so far when he suggested grabbing the next pirate vessel that happened through this system and getting what information they could from that crew. The commander had nixed the idea with a seasoned response; it could take weeks to see another ship out here, at least one that was not volus or turian.

The recon patrol had arrived about fourteen hours after the request reached fleet, given where they had been that was the quickest they could arrive. And that ship had been run off rather quickly by the turian forces protecting the interests of the Vol Protectorate in that system.

"Joker," Shepard called from down the bridge. The XO and the pilot both turned toward her. "Get us out of this system, before a turian patrol happens upon us."

"Yes, ma'am. Any preferences?" the pilot replied.

"Anywhere I won't get shot on sight sounds good."

"I think I can manage that. Relay system it is."

The navigator returned to the CIC and caught up to the commander at the perch, joining her there. "This is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, Commander."

"Tell me about it." Shepard pulled up the galaxy map and the two of them stared at the overall view of the relay system. "What's on your mind, Pressly?"

"We have orders for the Armstrong Cluster, yet we're chasing after a now missing pirate vessel," he all but whispered. "If we have the transponders, we can just post them out and wait for a response from the Fleet."

The commander turned slowly and looked up at him. "You really think that if they knew anything about Haliat's plan to taunt the Alliance that they will go within a hundred light years of an Alliance held system, or even one with Alliance interests? The window on these guys is closing and we need to get lucky. Otherwise, they are going to get away scott free."

"I might have some good news," Garrus said carefully from the commander's left. "I made a request, as a C-Sec officer on behalf of a Spectre. Hope you don't mind, Shepard." The commander dismissed the aside. "There are two patrols monitoring traffic at the Pylos Nebula relay. The only reports of movement in and out of system in the last fifty hours have been us and the Alliance vessel."

"Alenko, that data from the Grizzly, what was the timetable on the Etamin's last known?"

Pressly took the turian's news into consideration, while the commander seemed to be chasing the same breadcrumb the navigator chomped at. He manipulated the galaxy map and studied the image before him.

_Five systems. Satent and Nariph are out, no trace there. Zaharin?_ _No, not there_ , he told himself as he inspected the system. It was a virtual wasteland, no place to hide. _And surely that is exactly what they want, some place to lay low until they think it is safe to peek out of whatever hole they have found. They have to be here somewhere._ From reports, he knew Dirada and Kriseroi both had heavy pirate activity, so they might run for either, trying to hide amongst the rest of the trash.  

Tapping at his omnitool, Pressly pulled up the reports logged by the Alliance, it was just a rough estimate of the number of reports filed and complaints made by Alliance vessels about mercenary and raiding activity. Dirada's number of reports had risen in the last two months. Going back farther, the officer noticed the raids seemed to follow a set pattern of movement through the Pylos Nebula. If the trend held, in about two weeks the pirates would move back toward Satent to attack when the volus export cycle was set to begin again with fervor. And for the last two months, and, foreseeably, the next three Kriseroi, the farthest system from the relay would be virtually quiet.

All the attention would be on the systems with active raiding. _And here, where it is quiet, there are no eyes._ "The unseen is too often forgotten," he muttered to himself.

"Come again," Shepard replied, turning toward him.

"If your commander didn't check in, and you expected someone might come looking for you, you would find a rock to crawl under, right?"

Everything stopped in the CIC and everyone, including the commander, stared at him. Clearing his throat, Charles straightened a little more, squaring his shoulders. "We know they are not in Nariph or Satent. That leaves three remaining systems, two are known for a lot of pirate activity."

"What about the third?" Shepard asked quickly.

"Small system, no major developments on any of the planets there. Nothing tempting for pirates to be interested in."

"Could be a perfect place to go unnoticed."

"True," Pressly agreed as he leaned toward the map, zooming it in to show the location of the systems within the cluster. "Except that it is sitting very close to Dirada, which has had an influx of complaints about piracy in the last few months. So presumably they would need to discharge their drives in Dirada to reach Zaharin to hide out, possibly opening them up to scrutiny."

With a sweep of his hand, the interface scrolled right. "But sitting over here, all on its own is Kriseroi. Almost no reported activity in the last two months."

"Why?"

"This system seems to run on the cycle set by the Vol Protectorate's ingress and egress from Satent. The other systems see increases almost as if the pirates were moving with the seasons, like birds migrating. They spend two to three months harassing volus interests here. Then about the same amount of time in Dirada before moving on to Kriseroi. The volus season is about to start again, which means that the _Etamin_ could well have another three-month window of quiet in this dark little corner of the system." Pressly pointed toward the system sitting all on its own on the map.

"And three months is almost long enough to let them think they might be forgotten or written off for dead," Nyx agreed, zooming out the galaxy map to take in the entire cluster.

"Exactly, Commander."

"I like the way you think, Pressly."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Mr. Moreau."

"I heard, Commander. Course adjusted and we're going to be at the max when we hit that system," the pilot announced.

"When we get close I'll have Tanaka find us a place we can discharge, hopefully very quietly," Pressly assured, leaning toward the officer's shoulder.

"Excellent. Keep me apprised of our progress," she told Pressly. "Vakarian, see if you can't convince the turians out here to play nice and pass over any information on all the systems out here."

"All, Shepard?" the turian asked.

Pressly watched a calculating smile curl across the short woman's face. "Yes. All. I really don't want anyone else tagging along for the ride. I'd rather this be as much of a surprise as I can muster, and bringing along friends will kind of ruin our stealth factor."

"Understood."

"Nice job, X-O." Shepard nodded at him, wearing a look that bespoke the truth of the sentiment.

Shepard stepped down off what the bridge crew called the perch or the pedestal in equal measure. It really did only have one purpose beyond setting the commander of the deck above the rest of the crew serving there in the CIC--it held the controls for the galaxy map and gave the clearest view of the entire bridge. Of course, Pressly had come to appreciate the design element and the effect it seemed to have not only on the officer standing atop it, but also on all the crew forced to physically look up at them. Even Shepard towered over most of the crew from that point; Pressly felt a bit gargantuan when she left him there. He glanced around a moment, surveying the deck before stepping down himself.

 

**/3/**

The commander stretched her arms over her head, not stifling the big yawn that accompanied the action, as she crossed the deck toward the galley. Tali'Zorah watched her movement at first, until another drew her attention. When the blonde passed the troublesome viewing station, Kaidan's head rose slightly. His eyes tracked her and finally came to rest on the woman as she filled a large mug with what Tali learned was the favored beverage aboard the _Normandy_.

The metal spoon rang against the ceramic as Shepard stirred her cup; it was the only sound on the deck in that moment since most of the crew had turned in. When she turned, Tali bit her lip when she noticed Alenko's attention turn toward her then quickly back to the terminal that seemed to be perpetually on the fritz.

A tired groan accompanied Shepard's arrival at the table. "Can't sleep?" the officer asked the quarian.

Tali grinned, though only she knew it. "No. I'm still not quite used to the quiet."

Shepard, who had been reverently bowed over her cup as she sipped at the hot liquid, looked up at Tali with obvious surprise. "Wait a minute. You are having trouble sleeping because it is too quiet."

The quarian giggled. She knew it must seem odd, especially to Shepard who often mentioned how much she liked to find a calm quiet space just to hide away and breathe for a few moments. "On the Flotilla, things are loud and can be chaotic. Usually quiet means something is wrong."

Kaidan's chuckle turned both females' attention toward him. Tali noticed his cheeks redden at having been caught eavesdropping. Then she noticed Shepard smile into her coffee cup. The quarian sighed lightly remembering the conversation she had with the commander prior to their most recent trip to the Citadel.

"You were saying," Shepard prompted.

"Oh, yes. Quiet usually means something has stopped working and needs to be repaired. Sometimes it is innocuous, but not always." Her eyes flitted to the lieutenant, who seemed to be having trouble keeping his attention on his task. She could not stifle the giggle that burst out of her when she heard his sharp hiss at the circuit that sparked at him. _That man might do well to reconsider working on electronics when distracted_ , she thought as she noticed Shepard shaking her head lightly.

In some ways she understood completely, but it seemed silly to her to fight against something they both seemed to want. She tried not to think about it too hard. No matter her thoughts on the matter, she knew it was not her decision to make.

"You know," Shepard said, setting her mug down quietly, "I could see if Adams or one of the twidgets might be able to put together something that might help. You know? For when it's just too quiet."

"I thought about that but it's not quite the same. The sound wasn't just auditory, you can feel it too, like a pulse. Like the _Normandy_ 's drive core does, it is just so much more subtle than anything I'm used to."

Nyx nodded knowingly. Most of the team knew well how conscious Shepard was of the pulse and low hum of the power plant of the ship. It neared the status of an inside joke between the humans and aliens she worked closely with--the commander and her humming.

Tali tilted her head a moment. "Why do you call the engineers twidgets?"

"Huh?" the officer asked.

"You always refer to the engineering crew as twidgets. Why?"

"I … uh … It's just what I've always heard them called."

"Those categorized as such," Kaidan interjected as he closed the panel he had been working in, "like to think it's short for technical wizard."

"So it is a compliment?" Tali queried, looking from the lieutenant to the commander.

"Depends on who says it," Alenko clarified. "And the way it's used, really."

"Very true. There are some that don't hold those with that skill set in high esteem. Just like there are those who are overly cautious about biotics. Hell, I worry more about the gun nuts," Shepard said as her eyes moved to the left and her smile widened.

"Love you too, Skipper," Ashley grumbled lowly, her voice still carrying a trace of slumber. "How long til we get to this backwater system?"

Shepard tapped her wrist. "Helm, ETA, please."

"Just over three hours, Commander," a female's voice replied.

"Thank you--" her eyes shot to Alenko, who mouthed the standby pilot's name "--Ensign Draven."

Once the connection was broken Shepard shook her head and stood. "Can't believe I blanked on her name. Damn. Obviously not enough sleep. Thanks for the save, L-T," the commander said as she started across the deck.

"Anytime," he replied, trying to bite back the grin.

Tali hazarded a glance at Williams who seemed to notice it too. The chief shook her head at her mug, wearing a look that mimicked the quarian's thoughts.

 

**/4/**

Wrex stared at the layout of the vessel. It was one he knew well, very well. He had spent four years based off a ship like this. He tromped toward Shepard and increased the magnification on an area of the ship in the bowels of the boat. "For a covert entry this is going to be your best option. Most people don't realize it, but this disposal chute is completely vulnerable," the krogan said in a low grumble to the small human on his right.

"How so?" Shepard asked quietly, setting one foot on the railing. She leaned against that raised leg as she stared at the screen, with her head tilted slightly to one side.

"It's almost self-contained, electrically speaking. The alarms won't sound when the exterior is breached, though the interior hatch will lock down while the outer is open, but the shaft is wide enough for even a krogan to comfortably maneuver. You can easily short the controls for the inside mechanism from within the tube, even if you aren't tech savvy."

"It is a long way from our target."

"True. But, if once you're in, a second force kicks in the front door; we can draw most of the attention there, while you waltz right in through the back."

"Except that then I'm racing a clock."

"Not really, Shepard," Tali said stepping toward them. "The Migrant Fleet has a few vessels of this make. Their main servers are housed on this lower level. We could potentially reach them before anyone is aware of our presence. Once we reach that room, I could …" The quarian stopped and looked at both of them.

"She would be the best choice," the krogan pointed out. "Fastest hands on the ship, and if she's at all familiar with the architecture and the systems. That's a point on our side."

Shepard nodded, chewing at her bottom lip for a moment. The krogan had noticed the habit among several of the humans and wondered about it, because it did not seem to only accompany deep contemplation which is what he attributed it to in the commander's case. "Vakarian, how do you feel about dark, enclosed spaces?"

"About how anyone feels, Shepard," the turian replied in a beat.

The room buzzed with light laughter.

"Just tell me you're not going to freak out if I stuff you in a barrel," Shepard bit back, rolling her head to the side and glancing at the tall alien.

"No. I should be fine. Why? What are you thinking?" He and the others gathered around Tali, Wrex, and Shepard.

When the krogan felt the slight weight on his shoulder, he glanced right. Shepard winked then patted his arm lightly. "Wrex, here, has a stellar assault plan. Two teams, infiltration and distraction. Tali, Garrus, and I get to crawl through the long dark tube with hopes of reaching the server before anyone knows that we are there. While you four will kick in the front door, make a ruckus, and take in a little target practice. Wrex, here, has an intimate familiarity with these types of vessels, so that's going to come in very handy."

"Not _that_ intimate, Shepard," the krogan chided.

As the room hummed with laughter, the commander rounded the krogan. Stopping at his other shoulder and crossing her arms. "I want you to move in pairs--Wrex-Williams and Alenko-T'Soni. Your styles mesh, so that will be an advantage. If possible, I'd like whoever is running this vessel _taken alive._ "

The human looked up at the battlemaster, but he did not notice it until the back of her hand tapped his chest.

"I mean it, Wrex. Anyone who looks like they are giving orders, I want them subdued and detained where possible."

He understood her reasoning, though he disagreed with the soundness of the proposal.

"Standard procedure, Shepard?" Alenko added. "Anyone who surrenders is secured?"

Wrex tried not to grumble too loudly when she agreed; he knew she would. It was one of the things he never understood about the humans he worked with. They seemed to enjoy lording their achievements over the people they stepped on rather than just crushing them. With krogan it was much easier. You want what they have, wipe them out and take it. The way humans toyed with their prey felt tiresome to him.

"You good with that, Wrex?" Nyx asked.

"It's your ship. Your call. Your funeral," he groaned, glancing over at her.

"Indeed. Wrex will lead the assault team."

As Shepard stalked toward the door, the krogan noticed that he was not the only one surprised by the assignment. Too many times the lithe officer had assured him that he was part of her team, but the differences seemed too stark. She always took counsel from her combat team, but there just always seemed to be this distinction between some of the crew and himself, which he attributed to the scene in the wards with Fist.

It struck him as suddenly as the memory of that first operation together came back to him. He had overstepped her parameters and acted on his own orders. In that moment she had not faulted him for that, though she did voice her disapproval for the maneuver. He had not been able to reconcile that response with the fact that regularly when they encountered criminals near the Terminus they left none alive. Suddenly, standing there in the _Normandy_ 's comm room, the difference seemed entirely clear, and he knew this was a test. Shepard told him time and again he was part of her team, now it was his turn to show her she was correct.

The krogan crossed his thick arms over his chest. When he glanced over at the door, the commander met his eyes. When she nodded at him, he returned it, telling her this was her mission, her rules. As such, he would operate by them.

 

**/5/**

" _Commander, can I just say I really don't like this plan?_ " the pilot said on the team's encrypted channel.

"You can say it all you like," Nyx replied. "Now, open the damn bay."

The commander shook her head as the groan came across the channel. Sometimes her pilot was a strange mix of overprotective and petulant child, which depended on the day, really. Vakarian and Williams walked carefully and slowly down the ramp taking considerable care in the depressurized bay.

"Take your time and get them close, please. Williams, you're first."

"On it," the chief replied, her tone belying the fact that her concentration was centered elsewhere.

Shepard hated ship insertions, especially covert ones, too many things could go wrong from the first step to the last. If these shots were more than six inches too far apart, they would not be able to get the quarian on board. If this group of pirates was as paranoid as those she encountered on the last mission of this nature she ran, they could all go up in ball of fire if the wrong guy got to the right button in time. Nyx shook her head clear.

_This is not the time to reminisce about near-death experiences._ Her hands ran over her gear and harness again. As much as she loved the stars, loved space, she was never a big fan of dangling weightlessly in the cold void--that part of it never appealed to her, though she had always managed it just fine.

As her hands moved toward her shoulders a little tug pulled her backward a step. Then Kaidan stepped in front of her. His eyes started on the harness as he yanked at the straps to make sure they were snug; he had done the same with Garrus before the bay opened and Tali'Zorah as well. With a quick turn of her head, Nyx noticed the quarian standing very still, her hands clasped together tightly in front of her.

"You good?" Alenko asked, setting his hands on Shepard's shoulders and looking down at her.

"As good as one can be when about to trade the comfort of a ship for the dark sea," she replied, trying to keep her tone light and mask her own worry. She knew once they got the hatch open and got on the other vessel she would be much more relaxed. It was the trip from ship to ship that had Shepard on edge.

"Perfect shot. Nicely done, Vakarian," Williams said over the channel. She shook the turian slightly as the two of them turned to stow the large mounting cannons.

Shepard guessed he was at least as nervous as she was with this prospect. No one was particularly keen on this type of insertion--it always looked better in the vids, and even then it was never as nerve wracking. She tapped Kaidan's armored shoulder with the side of her fist. "See you on the flipside," she called to the team as she moved toward Engineer Adams who was assisting the quarian and the turian with attaching the various leads to Vakarian's harness. When she joined them, the process continued.

"You doing all right there, Tali?" Garrus asked quietly, placing his hand on her shoulder. Shepard could not help noticing how huge it seemed on the petite alien's small frame.

"Just the first time I've done something like this, ever, really," she revealed, her voice barely wavering.

"You'll be fine. We've got you," he assured her.

"Yeah. No worries. I've only ever dropped, like two guys," the commander said weakly.

Tali's squeak was not the reaction the officer was expecting.

"Shepard," Garrus barked.

"I'm kidding," the blonde assured, setting her hand between the quarian's shoulder blades. "I've never dropped anyone. And I'm not about to start now."

"You are not funny, Nyx," Tali assured as they walked to the lip of the bay.

The _Normandy_ was belly to belly with the Etamin. To a third party it might look a lot like some weird mating strategy. Nyx had done this more than a dozen times, but each time her stomach tightened sickeningly, dipping and swirling around itself. She took a deep breath as she clipped the line to the harness, tugging on it forcefully to ensure a good lock and seal on both ends.

"Let's do this, Vakarian."

 

**/6/**

The comms were completely silent. Garrus understood why. The rest of the team was just as concerned about this climb as the two making it. The height disparity between them was something he and Shepard had worked out on dead climbs in the gym over the past day and a half after finalizing the plans for the assault. They both adjusted their climbing speed and style to adjust to one another since the two had to keep a certain range of distance between them given the fact that they were essentially dead dragging Tali with them.

As they clung to the mounts, waiting for the quarian to hack the hatch, he remembered this was the easy part. The next climb was going to be the real test. Tali would be able to help on that climb, but once they reached the top, again he and the commander would be sharing her body weight to allow her the free use of her hands to pop the hatch.

When the _backdoor_ , as Wrex called it, opened, Garrus scrambled through in order to help Tali up. As Shepard grabbed the lip, the turian crouched and grabbed her wrist. The officer released the mounts which were loosely tethered to the still hovering _Normandy_. With the release of the second, he pulled the human through.

"Only way out now is the front door," Nyx said as Tali resealed the evacuation hatch.

"Nothing between us and it except a few dozen heavily armed and paranoid pirates," Garrus added.

" _You let us worry about them. You just get that pretty face of yours into the server room, turian_ ," Wrex chided over the radio.

They all chuckled lightly. "You heard the man. Time to get this started."

Thankfully the tube was wide enough that they did not having to climb with Tali's dead weight, not that it would have been all that much, but he knew it would make things easier in the long run. When they did have to take her full weight, it was only for a fraction of the time they had allotted for her to hack the hatch. The three of them unhooked their harnesses before opening the interior access--Shepard and Garrus would be the first ones out.

"Remember. Quick and quiet," Shepard all but whispered over the comms, emphasizing the statement as she drew the blade from her boot. The commander wanted to avoid open gunfire if at all possible to maintain operational security as long as they could manage.

"I know," Garrus replied, pulling his own blade--the military-issue Talon all turians received upon their enlistment into mandatory service with the Hierarchy. He had not used it in years, but he kept it. Like so many other turians he remembered his years in the military with an odd mix of fondness and hatred.

After the commander pointed upwards, Tali engaged the controls for the heavy plate closing off the tube. Garrus watched the little human jump lithely through the opening as soon as she had enough space. He was quick on her heels and exited just as she guided the lifeless batarian's body to the ground noiselessly.

"Alarms?" he asked.

"I don't think so. He was … shall we say … preoccupied," she noted as she tapped the power button on the console in the corner.

The image stopped, freezing two asari in place as they hovered over one very excited batarian. Before Tali emerged from the tube, the console was blank. Nyx stood in the doorway, pistol in one hand, knife in the other. He knew that once they entered the hall the only one with a gun out would be Tali and the shot would be hers if they were spotted at a distance. Anything up close in the tight passages would be handled by the turian at the head of their stealthy pack, or the human walking drag.

Tali silently directed them through the corridors without incident. Garrus narrowed his eyes as the door came into sight. He was more than surprised that they managed to creep through the lower deck unnoticed. The chirping little yelp caused him and Shepard to turn towards their third, in time to see the petite quarian elbow a burly batarian in the ribs. When her feet touched the ground, the man still clinging to her back, she whipped her head back. Releasing her, his hands went to his face with a loud groan, which prompted Shepard and Vakarian to move.

Garrus fell onto the assailant, burying his talon deep into the batarian's chest, while Shepard put herself between Tali and anything else that might be in the little alcove. When Vakarian stood, he handed the quarian her gun, which had fallen to the deck. Shepard dragged the body out of the walkway and cleared the thin access way. During the commander's short absence, Garrus set his hand on Tali's shoulder and nodded. She returned the gesture emphatically, though he could feel the barest tremor in her body, for which he could not fault her. He was not entirely sure that being grabbed by a beefy batarian pirate would not have made him a little jittery, too.

Even with the radio clear and secure, they only spoke minimally. When Shepard returned to the corridor shaking off her own blade, the quick motion of the officer's hand lined them back up and put them on the move again. The last ten meters brought no more surprises.

The three took up positions at the door, if they were lucky there were two or fewer men in this room, if they were not, then the silence they had maintained thus far was going to be broken in a big way. With the curt tip of his chin, the turian signaled his preparedness.

Garrus took a long slow breath. _It's just a few pirates. Nothing you can't handle._

Tali triggered the hatch and Shepard passed through it first.


	23. One Small Galaxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The assault on the Etamin concludes. Data retrieved offers another viable lead though presents some interesting concerns of its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long hiatus. I appreciate every reader, new and returning, and every subscriber. Thank you for reading, and a hearty thanks to Laura for betaing this chapter for me.

**23 One Small Galaxy**

**i.**

Knowing Shepard, the entrance had been textbook. Tali presumed this only because that was the commander’s way. She drilled to make tactics like this second nature, but even so the human never took their training for granted. Garrus started right, entering behind her then something made his step falter. _Very unlike him_ , Tali thought, observing for a moment before her eyes darted up then down the corridor.

Shepard’s voice resounded in the quarian’s helmet, “Cle—.” The stark change in her tone drew Tali’s attention back to the door Garrus still stood in. His body held more that the cautious tension it had moments earlier.

“Drop it.”

The unfamiliar voice caused every muscle in Tali’s body to coil tightly and she knew the reason for the change in her teammate. It took a moment but eventually the metallic clang of one then another knife hit the ground. The tinkling of metal reverberated through Tali’s head. Her pulse raced faster than it had when the batarian grabbed her. As her heartbeat pounded in her ears, she wondered if they could all hear it. Pressing her back tightly against the wall, the quarian took long, slow breaths, or at least tried to. All along, her eyes kept moving—left, right, Garrus, left, right, Garrus. He never looked at her; she wondered why.

The turian raised his hands away from his sides, holding them out palm down. Shepard made small sounds of—well, Tali did not know if it was anger, pain, irritation, or all three in various quantities. Tali’s kept watch as her mind raced for a solution; split second combat decisions were not forte. Garrus stood between her and Shepard, who likely blocked the pirate. She was a better shot with the shotgun, but the scatter even at close range would wound Shepard, too—potentially fatally. _That would be a wonderful way to ensure she never returned to the Flotilla_. Tali’s fingertips teased at the butt of her Striker [i] indecisively.

“The pistol, too, Garrus.”

The order made Tali startle and she pulled her hand away from her own weapon before realizing he hadn’t been talking to her. She was not the greatest pistol marksman. _Something I need to change_ , she thought in reaction to their situation.

The movement Garrus made drew Tali’s attention. With a moment of study, she noticed the odd shift in his stance in response to the pirate calling him by name. She could not help the curiosity that stabbed through her mind. _How does he know Garrus? Who is it? Does Garrus know him?_

“Slowly,” the pirate emphasized with deliberate pacing. “Don’t even think about it or I’ll bleed this human,” the pirate cautioned with a rumbling growl, the harmonics in his voice identified him as turian without having seen him.

Whatever the pirate did elicited a grumble from said human. It made Tali’s hands twitch as she swiped open her omni-tool. _You have to do something. You’re the unknown here. He’s focused on Shepard and Garrus. Think, Tali!_

“Shoot him,” Shepard ordered through gritted teeth, enunciating each syllable with a hint of a hiss. The edge in the commander’s voice wrapped around Tali’s spine; the increased tension slowed the silent movement of her fingertips for a second before they picked up speed again.

Eyes flitting from her wrist to the hall, both directions, to the door and back again, the quarian grasped at straws. The cameras were no help, she could not get into the system from here. Of course, she already knew that; it was the whole reason this room was their objective in the first place. Her fingers wriggled above the interface as options flooded through her mind, there was nothing she could access wirelessly.

In the meantime, Garrus disobeyed a direct order. His talons plucked the pistol from its holster to the sound of Nyx sighing. The sound cut off. Tali imagined the pirate had been the cause of it and her anger set her jaw tight.

“Aelen? What are you doing here?” Vakarian asked, kneeling slowly to set his sidearm on the ground.

Tali’s jaw dropped slightly then she drew in an enlightened breath. She realized precisely what her squad mate was doing. He was giving her a clear line of sight. Garrus’ actions gave her a short window and the opening she would need. Her fingers moved in a new frenzy, then she whispered, _“Sorry, Commander,”_ in a small voice over the comm channel just before inhaling a deep breath and holding it. She spun into the entryway and loosed a jolt of energy that arced through the air with a crackling snap. The human soldier and the turian pirate, with a blade to her throat and a gun pushed into her ribs, crumpled to the ground in a tangled pile.

Tali made their report quickly. _“Control room cleared. Wrex, you’re a go.”_

_“Copy,”_ the gruff voice replied over the comms.

Tali pushed Garrus’ shoulder lightly, encouraging him back onto his feet. “Secure that guy before either of them wake up,” the quarian ordered as she squeezed past him through the door.

“Nicely done.”

Kneeling next to Shepard, the quarian ran a scan. _You’re going to have one hell of a pounding headache in your future,_ she thought as she made sure the amped up neural blast hadn’t injured the commander. Beyond knocking her out, that was. Looking over her shoulder, she finally asked. “What the hell was that?”

Garrus did not answer immediately. He secured the turian to a chair then straightened and looked down at the two females. “I know him,” he said before going to the hatch. Holstering up his weapons, the turian then turned his attention to the door, which he sealed and hacked closed, locking it down until their assault was complete.

His tight voice sparked her curiosity. “Surprisingly enough, I guessed that already.” Tali’Zorah stood and slipped lithely into the chair before the main console. Her fingers moved with equal combinations of haste and purpose to make up the time they wasted on the hostage incident and the aftermath. She gained control of the _Etamin_ ’s vital systems easily from the open, on-board console. After several quiet minutes, she asked, “How?”

Another silence stretched between them, making the room’s atmosphere thick with awkwardness. “We grew up together, on Palaven. Met on the first day at the academy. We studied together as children, trained together, then served in the same unit. I saw him almost every day for twenty years, up until I joined C-Sec,” Garrus explained. He knelt over the commander, monitoring her as they waited for her return to consciousness.

Tali spun around and looked at him. He seemed to be torturing himself more than enough for both of them, so she kept her scolding to herself, for now. Turning to the interface again, her fingers returned to the task of cutting off access points and herding the remaining armed pirates toward the other team. Finding a large congregation of the _Etamin_ ’s crew in the mess hall and game room, she sealed the bulkheads cutting them off from the rest of the ship.

As the gunfire started, the quarian took down the vessel’s weapon systems. Then she secured entry to the engineering area and stole their ability to access the ship’s controls from any console but the one she controlled. _There will be no sabotage today,_ she thought as she also set the parameters that would allow the air to be bled from that area if the cameras showed any attempt to bypass her restrictions. The idea of having to execute that program made her chest tighten, but she remembered the orders and knew the risks if someone did decide to try and take control of the situation by priming the ship’s core to explode.

_It literally could be a case of them or us_ , she thought. Her fingers, which tightened into a fist for a moment, began to move more freely over the console again as the young quarian decided that she was not willing to allow a trade-off like that to occur.

 

**ii.**

Shepard shifted slightly and groaned. Her forehead still rested in her hands elbows on her knees.

“I really am sorry, Shepard,” Tali said for at least the fourth time since the commander had returned to consciousness.

“ _You_ did what you had to,” the officer replied as she stared at Garrus from beneath her fingers. She had to give him one thing—he never looked away even despite the hint of accusation in her tone and the sharpness of her glare. She did not want those things to be present, but for the life of her she could not get that grating feeling to dissipate. Shepard might have been used to surprises, but having one of your squad called out by name by the enemy wasn’t one she’d been remotely prepared for.

“We almost done, Alenko?” Shepard again regretted the sharpness in her tone, but at that moment it could not be avoided.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kaidan confirmed with at least as much professional distance as she was placing between them.

When he concluded the scan, Shepard cleared the room and hopped back to her feet. She felt the change of position in her head, and fought the need to reach out for the edge of the table near her as the floating sensation of dizziness toyed with her balance. The commander was sure she lacked her typical command presence at that moment, but despite that Garrus straightened in response. After regaining control of her body, Nyx stalked toward him, eying him with a gaze as stoic as any turian officer might muster in the same situation, entirely by design. She’d witnessed those kinds of looks, even received a few in her day, and she wanted this moment to feel familiar to him, she wanted him to see her displeasure with the way their infiltration concluded.

“Would you like to tell me what just happened?” Shepard asked with a disturbing amount of calm as she stopped within a foot of the tall alien who outstripped her by nearly two feet.

“I know him.” The answer was short, precise, to the point, and stated clearly.

“I gathered that when he called you by your given name.” Nyx laid her hands her hips and took another step toward him. “What _I_ want to know is why my entry partner froze rather than taking down his man? Why _I_ got to have another go with a damned turian Talon? And why _Tali’Zorah_ was forced to neural shock her team leader? All because _you know him_.”

Garrus should have been on her heels. The turian should have taken his target down before the pirate had the chance to get the drop on her. That was Garrus’ side to clear. It was Vakarian’s target. But, instead of her second through the door handling his assignment, Nyx got to add another near miss to her record, along with earning a splitting headache she really did not need to add to her current mix of brain scrambling. With that thought she took a long slow breath and eased back a note, relaxing her clenched jaw. She closed her eyes in a long blink before meeting his gaze again.

“Talk to me, Garrus. Explain this to me. I want to know what happened. What was going through your mind?”

“I froze, Commander.”

She sighed with a great deal of exasperation. “Was it merely because you knew him? Or is there something more to this all?”

“Him. Aelen and I were very good friends when we were younger. Grew up together. Served together. He saved my life once. Well … more than once.”

That sentiment she could understand. To be completely honest, she made the exact same mistake once, but, in the end, none of that mattered. Despite her ability to sympathize with the position Garrus found himself in when they crossed that threshold, it could have gotten all of them killed. Just like in her own experience, their former posts and who they had been to one another held no bearing any longer. What it all came down to was the likely results of his hesitation. And here the results could have been devastating, if not for a quick-thinking quarian with enough guts to put it all on the line.

With another slow blink, Nyx turned from him as she swallowed back her empathy. It had no place in that moment. Right then, she could not be his friend, she could not offer comfort and understanding; she was his squad leader and he needed to see this all in that light. Though, judging from the look in his eyes, he likely already told himself many of the things she was about to say.

“So, what then?” she asked as she turned. “Tali’s and my lives were repayment? The rest of the team, potentially the _Normandy_? You planned on evening up the score with him?”

Shepard could not be sure she had ever seen shock on a turian’s face before, but she heard it in Garrus’ voice. “No! Never.”

“That’s what you did in there,” she accused, holding his gaze as she pointed away from them in the general direction of that portion of the ship. “I had a Talon to my throat and got the hell shocked out of me because you balked when you saw an old friend. That cannot happen, Vakarian.”

“I know, Commander.”

She could hear the definite shame in his tone; it affected her--not that she could show him that. Judging from his reaction, he was at least as hard on himself as she had been and could be on herself.

“I won’t let it happen again.”

Shepard nodded as she held his gaze. That was precisely the point she had been moving toward. Only rarely did people beat her to the punch, though her arc was an obvious one. Her tone shifted a notch or two back toward friend. “That’s all I can ask from you. Do better next time, because we might not have a crafty quarian on our six.” Crossing her arms over her chest, Nyx took a deep breath as she willed the throbbing in her head to subside, it wasn’t really working. “Give me more on this guy. What’s he doing out here?”

Garrus’ head shake did not inspire confidence. “I honestly don’t know, Shepard. This is the last place I would have expected to see him. And to be blunt about it. He’s never been a big fan of humanity to begin with, lost family at Shanxi.”

“Then I guess you get to talk to him first.” The commander stood and gestured toward the door; meeting him there; she placed a hand on his arm. “See if you can’t get me something useful, like who’s funding all this. Save that, I want everything he knows.”

“I’ll get it, Commander.”

“Good. Take Wrex in there with you. Tell him to look hungry.”

Garrus almost laughed. The sharp choked sound tugged at the corner of her mouth as he gave her a nod before exiting. Nyx leaned there near the door rubbing her fingers in tiny circles against her forehead. _Goddamn neural shock. Just what I fucking well needed_ , she thought.

Shepard exited the room shortly after Garrus. Looking down the hall and back up again, her gaze locked on a sympathetic pair of warm amber eyes. A part of her was glad he had not gone far, while she also struggled with that realization. This was the wrong place and the wrong time to be relieved by his proximity. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat and gave him a summoning nod.

“Alenko, monitor the interrogation of the prisoner,” she ordered just before Wrex’s laughter rumbled through the hallway. When he started to pass her, she grabbed his arm and looked him in the eyes. Kaidan’s look suggested that he got what she wanted to say, but could not. He gave her a small tip of his head, then she asked. “Is Williams leading the securing of the prisoners?”

“Yes, ma’am. The ground team is assisting, as is the rest of ship security.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

He nodded, his hand squeezing her elbow, before his arm dropped to his side. He held her gaze for a moment longer, but the exchange was over as almost as quickly as it began. She let go of him and traveled down the hall toward the bridge, while he moved deeper into the ship in the wake of Wrex and Garrus. With each step, her chest tightened a little more. Nyx had no explanation for the sensation, but she also wasn’t sure what to do about it, so she did nothing and continued on her course to the front of the ship.

When she arrived, Shepard found Liara, who sat at one console in the corner with her chin in her hand as she swiped her finger along the screen, reading, or so Shepard presumed. Tali busied herself across from the asari; her omni-tool hardwired to the captain’s console, as her digits traversed the interface in a dizzying choreography.

“Found anything?” Shepard asked without specifying a target for her inquiry.

“Encrypted files. Haliat did not seem to trust anyone,” Tali surmised without looking away from the screen. “It shouldn’t take long to crack. Nothing else has been too challenging.”

“Just remember I want duplicate copies of everything in these systems.”

The quarian nodded wordlessly as she continued her task.

“How about you?” Shepard asked, moving toward the archaeologist.

“Correspondence, mostly,” Liara answered. “He dealt with the same groups over and over again. Preyed on vessels traveling to and from the volus colonies here. Dealt with a few other pirates, some Blood Pack groups. They received a great deal of information about ships and cargo, from Yila and other ports. There is other correspondence as well—ExoGeni personnel and communiques signed Resentful Rancor and someone called Fist.” The doctor turned in her seat. “Honestly, where do they come up with these names?” she asked, looking up at Shepard like she would have an answer. Then she quickly turned back to the screen. “These pirates they are like children.”

The names, one in particular drew both of the other females’ attentions. Nyx stopped halfway between the them and looked back at Tali once Liara’s attention returned to the data. “Well-armed children,” she reminded.

“True,” the doctor replied, her head turning away from Shepard as her hand rested on her cheek again.

“What did Fist have to say?” The commander asked carefully. She watched Tali as she asked the question to see if she seemed all right with the inquiry. Thankfully, no obvious reaction arose.

“Nothing in particular, they just traded funds and information. Haliat asked about cargo, sometimes he traded data packets other times there were only transfers of credits. Looks like he might have put Haliat onto a job retrieving cargo from ExoGeni and delivering it to Binary Helix. Though there’s no mention of what specifically.”

“Anything about Agebinium?” Shepard asked, straightening.

Tali moved to another console, her attention remaining focused there, the commander guessed she was likely curious about Fists transmissions as well.

“No, not at all. I haven’t seen any communication about that situation, Shepard.” Liara turned again and blinked at her a few times.

Nyx sighed and continued to the asari’s side. Fist’s name secured Tali’s interest, while it sparked Nyx’s as well there was another which intrigued the commander more—the Resentful Rancor. _It would appear Volus piracy it still alive and well_ , she thought as she rested her helmet on the desk area of the console and leaned over Liara’s shoulder to skim some of the transmissions.

“Tali, once we have copies of all this data I’ll need decryption to be your top priority once we’re back aboard the Normandy. Yours alone,” she added as she searched the entries for what she wanted.

“Certainly, Shepard.”

_The universe just keeps getting smaller and smaller_ , Shepard reasoned.

 

**iii.**

Liara’s hand still covered her warm cheek when the commander loomed over her station. When Nyx leaned toward her, she held her breath and tried to keep a bit of distance. Tapping the screen, Shepard asked, “Can you pull up the most recent communication with the Resentful Rancor?”

When she looked up, Shepard looked her dead in the eye; she always did. There was something about that habit though and every time Liara met the commander’s gaze, she felt exposed, as if Shepard could read every thought in her head. It was intense and disconcerting. She looked away and pulled up the requested information.

“Here you are, Shepard,” Liara announced quietly. The proximity of the Spectre made her nerves tingle and her stomach tighten. She knew what it was, this was not the first time she found herself interested in another being. She just wondered if her interest might not be steeped in the dire situation which surrounded their meeting.

This woman saved her life. Perhaps what she felt was just some psychological effect of almost having died in those ruins on Therum. Liara tried to wipe the thought from her head, instead she focused on the words on the screen, or tried to.

_RR: Watch your ass!_

_RR: You go looking for Shepard and get what you get._

  1. _Just not how you imagine._



_EH: Don’t you worry your tight little ass about me._

_EH: I can handle soldier girl._

_RR: Ha!_

_RR: Haven’t you seen the vids, you idiot?_

_EH: It’s all some Alliance ploy._

_EH: She’s been their poster girl since the Blitz._

_EH: A pretty face to charm the new recruits._

_EH: THAT’S all!_

_RR: You of all people should know better._

_RR: Didn’t she kill your brother?_

_EH: Just send me this mind-blowing data you promised._

_RR: Fine._

_RR: It’ll be your funeral._

_RR: And before you ask, NO! I won’t piss on your smoldering corpse._

_EH: Love you too, babe._

_RR: In your dreams._

_RR: Where’s my money?_

_EH: On its way._

Shepard’s eyes narrowed at the screen, her mouth twisting downward. Liara tried not to watch her as she read. But either she read much faster than the human, or the commander was rereading the communique. Liara’s vibrant blue eyes flicked to Nyx’s face, specifically to the muscle flexing in her jaw.

“What mind-blowing data is he talking about?” Nyx asked, looking at her.

Liara stuttered when confronted with that cool blue gaze, returning her attention to the console. She fumbled through a few locations and found the file in question. The screen filled quickly with a collection of random symbols.

“Encrypted,” Nyx sighed.

“Looks like,” she agreed.

The commander turned, and leaned against the desk. At first, she stared at the wall opposite her, then she locked eyes with Liara again. The doctor swallowed the lump in her throat, anticipating another question. She battled with her own body over its reaction to this human, but no matter what she tried her pulse still raced and her chest felt like it was emptying of air, hollowing out.

“Are there any other communiques between these two?”

“A few, but they are all short little notes. Like this one.” She felt calmer when she was focused on the screen, so she tried to keep her eyes there. “Heading out to EG-34. Hope BH beats us there. Then RR says that ship was scheduled for today, so no excuses. Haliat replies rather flippantly again. There are more.”

“EG-34? What’s EG-34?”

Tali turned, leaning back in her chair. “Best I can tell from what I’ve found so far—an ExoGeni site.”

“Beautiful,” Nyx groaned with a grimace. Her long, delicate fingers massaged her temples.

Liara stared at the action, watching Shepard’s hands. They did not look like the hands of a warrior, save for the silvery-pink scars on her knuckles. Her fingers were long and thin, like the fingers of a musician she knew once—they held the same dexterity, though far more power. They moved in careful firm circles at Shepard’s temples. Liara wondered if the other woman really thought she could massage away the impact of a neural blast, or all the other stress her body and brain had been placed under lately. In both her professional and personal opinion, she thought Nyx should rest, but the scant likelihood of that happening had already become transparently clear to Liara.

Even so, she spoke up. “Perhaps you should head back to the _Normandy_ , let Dr. Chakwas take a look at you.”

Her hands stopped, and her eyes locked onto Liara’s “Alenko ran a field scan. I’m fine … -ish.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Liara bit her tongue, looked away as Shepard straightened and put more distance between them. She felt foolish for crossing that boundary. Yet again she had said too much, gone too far. Liara continued her struggle with the location of the line of propriety, and the way her pulse raced around the commander did not help in the least.

“Appreciate the consideration, Doc, but right now I need you focused on gathering as much intel out of these files as you can. Then I’ll worry about my headache.”

Peeking over her shoulder, Liara watched Shepard lean over Tali. The two spoke quietly for a moment before the commander left them to complete their task. Try as she might the exchange played in her head again, more than once. She knew this was foolish; her reactions to Nyx made her feel like a schoolgirl, but still she struggled with her responses. _You need to get control of yourself_ , she told herself repeatedly as she tried to focus on the task at hand.

 

**iv.**

The real work began after Shepard turned the _Etamin_ over to the Vol Protectorate on Yila. The turian forces protecting the shipping transit from that planet happily took custody of the pirates, including Aelen, who the Spectre ordered be transferred to C-Sec custody. Shepard knew the Hierarchy would likely take their time in returning him. Of course, the lone turian in the _Etamin_ ’s mostly human crew would certainly draw notice and interest.

Given everything Garrus told her about him, especially the notation about Shanxi, she wondered what brought Aelen to that crew. For a moment, she wondered if it was Haliat’s plan to embarrass the Alliance that lured him to them. But the interrogation provided another answer—pure desperation. Disgraced, abandoned by family and community, Garrus’ old friend took whatever work he could get. A few years earlier, he had been on a transport that Haliat’s crew hit. The _Etamin_ , short on hands, offered that crew one chance at survival. Aelen took it.

It was not an uncommon tale. Though it had taken longer to get out of him than she hoped, namely because being questioned by his old friend did not have the intended impact. Shepard took a gamble that their past would give them an automatic rapport, but it failed to play out that way.  Garrus eventually relinquished the interrogation to Alenko. Even so, it produced nothing of consequence except an explanation for his presence. The information he turned over all appeared in the manifests and logs. He wasn’t even privy to the whereabouts of his captain, though he had heard scuttlebutt that Haliat had missed his expected transmission.

Back on the _Normandy_ , one encrypted package of data passed to the Alliance’s intelligence liaison on the ship, Ensign Encanto. He could jump through whatever hoops the brass asked for. Shepard entrusted the duplicate to Tali, who decrypted it in record time. Then she and Liara sifted through it. Shepard figured the doctor’s education and penchant for research would make her an ideal candidate for the task.

Within days, Nyx was proven right. The three of them—Tali’Zorah, Liara, and the commander—sat around the table in her quarters.

“You see,” Liara began, picking up one datapad and then another and another before she had the one she wanted, then she leaned toward Shepard, her finger guiding the officer’s eyes to the exact line of evidence, “Based on information from Fist, Haliat and his crew were raiding ExoGeni settlements and returning certain cargo to Binary Helix operations in the Terminus and other outer systems. What’s most curious, however, is this delivery.” Liara tapped the screen and handed it to Shepard, allowing her to read it for herself.

The entry simply stated that the pirates delivered a large shipment to a Binary Helix facility on Noveria. “What’s this got to do with Agebinium?”

“Nothing, as far as we can tell,” Tali noted.

“At least at first glance,” Liara corrected. “So, I did a little digging.” Her cheeks tinged a slight shade of purple and her eyes returned to the table as she started shifting through the evidence she’d brought with her. Her tone was almost apologetic as she said, “I used your Spectre clearance, as you suggested. Looking into Binary Helix I found that my … Benezia is listed as the executive secretary of Binary Helix.”

Shepard looked from Liara to Tali and back. “What else?”

“Since High Command is still dragging their feet as far as sharing information, I might have taken a little liberty,” Tali admitted. “But nothing _too_ illegal. I just dug up investment records and transactions.”

She thrust another datapad at Shepard. “Over the past twelve years, Saren has made substantial investments in the firm. He’s been steadily building up interest and power within the group.”

“And Binary Helix, like other companies that do business on Noveria, are …” Liara considered her phrasing for a moment, looking away from Shepard when the commander met her gaze. “They are responsive to the needs and desires of their investors.”

“Especially to ones who have put in the kind of credits Saren has.”

“This is an interesting little love triangle,” Shepard noted, skimming the newest information in her hands. “Nice job with the breadcrumbs. Looks like we’re going to Noveria.”

“Shepard, Noveria is privately chartered. It’s exempt from Council law,” Tali informed.

The commander sank into her chair, setting the datapad on the table. “Beautiful.”

“Though the Executive Board of the Noveria Development Corporation has granted Spectres extraterritorial privileges,” Liara clarified. “But they are easily cowed by their own investors.”

“And this just keeps getting better.”

* * *

 

[i] Pistol produced by Elanus Risk Control Systems


End file.
